Juice Cups and Coffee Mugs
by chezchuckles
Summary: Three of three in The Last Battle trilogy. Beckett and Castle return to New York City to resume a life interrupted. A post finale fic.
1. First Star

**Juice Cups and Coffee Mugs**

* * *

 **x**

 _Star light, star bright,  
_ _First star I see tonight,  
_ _I wish I may, I wish I might,  
_ _Have this wish I wish tonight._

 _-Anonymous_

 **x**

 **I. First Star**

 **x**

When her interview is finally over at One Police Plaza, Kate seeks out her partner.

Since her text went unanswered, she has a fair idea of what's kept him away from his phone, and it's a matter of twenty minutes on the subway to Tribeca even during rush hour. She heads up the stairs and out into New York City, smelling Greek food and the Hudson River, and she lets her eyes absorb the sidewalks, the architecture, the busyness surrounding New York Law School and its supporting culture.

Two weeks back in her city, and she's still seeing the facades first, even if her anxiety is leveling off. For instance, she knows where Rick is despite not reaching him, and she heads down Franklin Street towards her gym with the confidence of a native.

This is her neighborhood. Her apartment just down the block, near Hudson, and her local gym where she used to box with the trainer, hit the heavy bag, take out her frustration. She pauses just outside the grimy exterior, cement and peeling paint where the graffiti is showing through, and then she opens the frosted glass door and pushes up her sunglasses to see inside.

Instead of finding Rick at one of the weight benches, he's in the boxing ring.

She stands stunned just inside, like prey frozen and witless, but her old trainer catches sight of her and comes off the ropes, reaching out an arm to her. His hug is rough and strong around her shoulders, and she follows after him wordlessly.

"He's doing good, promise you that." Joe pats her on the back and resumes his place, hanging on the lower rope, watching Castle take a swift punch to the body.

But her husband keeps his elbows tucked in, his head up, and some of the knot in her stomach begins to ease. He gets in a jab that's more solid than she would have expected from her writer, and he follows it quickly with a forceful punch that knocks his opponent back. He has power.

"You've been training him for how long?" she says in a low voice, swallowing past her own instinctive aversion.

Joe grins back at her over his shoulder. "Two weeks."

Since they moved back.

She realizes her arms are crossed over her chest; she's holding tightly to her elbows as if to protect them all. Castle weaves, drops back, comes in heavily, just as a man his size would, and it gives his attacker the opportunity to beat him back again. More body blows, though she's pleased to see that Castle is keeping himself well-guarded. Chin tucked.

It's a slow fight, which means it's a good one, as she learned long ago, and the blows are quick and well-placed. The two are evenly matched, though she thinks, not at all biased, that Castle is better.

He's also drenched in sweat, shirtless, and flexing muscle she swears she's never seen before.

And the butterflies are feathering at her lungs again, making her lips numb and her fingers hot. Wanting. Desperate in ways she doesn't like to look at too closely.

The fight is called a draw, and the two trade light punches to the shoulders, Castle first, and then his opponent, and when he takes off the headgear and turns around, she sees the beaming and childish pride on his face, how much he loves this.

But his smile wipes clean off when he recognizes her standing just past his trainer - _her_ trainer - and he comes to a halt still inside the ring.

She steps up beside Joe, curls her fingers around the bottom rope, and she pushes it down. "Come on out of there, Rick. They want to start."

He glances guiltily over his shoulder at the next teacher and pupil, and then comes slinking under the ropes, stepping over the one she's holding for him. He puts a heavy gloved hand on her good shoulder and drops to the floor, his bare feet slapping the concrete.

"Good fight, Richard. Very nice - did you notice his shoulder dropping?" Joe mimes the action. "You could have gone in when he was close-"

"I noticed," Castle interrupts, smiling. At her. He drops a sweaty kiss on her cheek, inhaling her. "Mm, sweet." His tongue against her skin, darting. "And savory."

"Not in my gym," she husks, can't resist lightly slapping his cheek. "If you're through here, we need to talk."

"I'm not quitting," he says darkly, pulling away from her with a scowl. All caught-out little boy.

"I would never ask," she answers, a finger and thumb circling his wrist just above the glove. "Never."

He studies her intently. "Something went wrong at the interview."

She shakes her head. "Not wrong. Just - didn't know what to expect." She touches his waist, the sweat of him at her fingers, damp and warm. Like celebrating in bed, like when he works for it, for her. "Did you know Esposito was 'relieved of command'? That's what they called it. He was demoted back to sergeant working Homicide."

A cautious flicker over his face. "When?"

"A month after we left for the Hamptons." She shakes her head. "For impeding a federal investigation. Demoted instead of _arrested_ , they hinted at me, though I think they were overstating things to impress upon me the seriousness of it."

Castle looks surprised but not bewildered, not like she felt hearing it.

She narrows her eyes at him. "What do you know?"

He glances around the gym, but the boxing match is taking most of the room's attention, including Joe's. Her husband shrugs, rubs one of his taped hands down his face. "I might have - I told him you wanted clear of it. That it was done for us. Agent Greene was on us all the time and I guess Espo took it a little too far?"

"Castle," she whispers. But there's an element of relief, like finding out they've all had her back, protected her, and she doesn't have to do it alone.

He draws a careful arm around her, and sweaty as he is, she likes it. Likes the overwarm feeling of his body close, and how her stomach flutters. She closes her eyes, turns her face into his.

Okay, little too sweaty. "Ew. Let go, babe."

He does, a grin, glancing down her body in that check he does now, as if to be sure they're still here. His taped knuckles fist bump her stomach. "What did they say about you taking back the captaincy?"

She breathes. "A conditional yes." Her jaw works. "They want us to testify at the trial. The prosecution's case against Mason apparently - isn't all that hot."

Castle goes very still.

She smooths her hand down his shirt, sweat-stained as it is. "I won't if you-"

"Captaincy is contingent on our testifying. They need us or they got nothing. That's what you're telling me."

She doesn't answer, trying to contain her own feelings, keep from influencing his. He's the one who still has nightmares.

Rick catches her hand, squeezing. "We'll do it. You deserve that desk."

 _And so does the baby._

 **x**


	2. I Wish

**Juice Cups and Coffee Mugs**

* * *

 **II. I Wish**

 **x**

"Sometimes I think we're crazy," Rick muses, a sidelong look at the therapist. "But then I figure you'd have told us that by now."

"Why would I?" Dr Burke says, a lift of his eyebrow.

The doc is joking. Probably. "Fair point," he sighs, flattening his palms on his knees. His jeans are smooth, well-worn; he's spent the last eight months in these jeans because... because he just has. "Anyway, the answer is no."

"No?"

Rick shrugs under Burke's cool assessment. Beckett says that her therapist never leads, but Castle feels led every time. Directed to the right answers, the ones that seems to be clear and obvious the second after he speaks them aloud.

A simple _no_ query in response to Castle's once-confident answer is enough to make him think. Was it an assumption of Rick's, does he not know?

"Uh, I don't think so? No. I'm a good father, if perhaps unorthodox. That doesn't concern me."

"So then what does, Rick?"

Does anything concern him? He didn't think so, he's excited to be having a baby, but now that Dr Burke is asking...

A niggle of doubt worms its way through his chest, burning in the same places as those scars.

"Rick? When I asked how you felt about this pregnancy, you flinched. Would you please delve into that feeling and unpack it for me?"

"Oh," he sighs, rubbing two fingers against his brow. "I think it's not about me. Just Kate."

Dr Burke remains absolutely silent.

It's like digging his own grave, but Burke is really good at that pressuring silence. And Rick _is_ paying for it. Might as well talk.

"It's not a bad thing, I promise. I'm worried about her - um - this might sound male chauvinist, and I assure you it's not. I'm worried about what happens to her body." He flushes even as he says it, because it does sound bad, especially coming out of his mouth.

But of course Burke doesn't judge, just lifts a finger indicating Castle should continue.

Rick realizes he's pressing his knuckles into the scar across his shoulder and he makes himself drop his hand. "The place where I was shot - it _kills_ sometimes. All of the sudden it feels like blades are digging into my shoulder. But Kate was shot twice." His voice breaks and he works his throat. "And with a pregnancy, everything gets shifted around, skin stretches, organs are pushed up to make room for the baby. It isn't comfortable at the _best_ of times, and these aren't ideal conditions. And I've done that to her. It's my fault."

Burke taps one finger against his eyebrow, doesn't blink. No comment.

"I mean, I know it takes two to tango, so to speak, but it's still my fault. My kid rearranging everything in there-"

"I'm hearing a lot of emotion around this, Rick." The therapist makes a circular motion with his pen, doesn't take notes though. "All around this subject. We have established very clearly that you didn't shoot her, nor did you push Kate into this case, into danger. The shooting is not your responsibility."

He shakes his head, in agreement though, because they have gone through this and it's not his issue. It never really has been. Once, long ago, especially after she was shot at Roy's funeral, he did have that issue and it plagued him. But that was because he was alone all summer, imagining the worst. He had that issue only until he saw her again, _fought_ with her again, felt how strong and dangerous and glittering she was.

He doesn't feel responsible for the shooting, for putting her in the path of her mother's case all those years ago. "No," he finally remembers to say. He's supposed to acknowledge his acceptance and agreement. "The shooting wasn't my fault."

Burke nods with that paternal pride, reinforcing Castle's statement. "Second of all. You have a daughter, and I know you were with her mother during the pregnancy. You've seen how uncomfortable it can be for a woman, and I will concede you have an added layer of concern for Kate's emotional health. But please explain why this time it's a matter of guilt and last time, with Alexis's mother, it wasn't."

 _I didn't love her_.

Well, but he _did_. Didn't he? Not like this, but he was concerned for Meredith and tried to cater to her. She was melodramatic, she wouldn't be consoled, she ran him ragged for it, like punishment, and her-

"Oh. I - suppose because I - it feels so much more fragile. Like I'm going to lose it. Her."

There's a heartbeat of silence.

Rick lets out a long, shaky breath, averting his eyes from Burke. He presses his palms to his knees and pushes back in the armchair, back until his spine is rigid.

Burke is making a note on his yellow legal pad. Just like the kind Beckett always used in Homicide. It's vaguely comforting. Like a notation from Burke means this is something they'll work on and soon Rick won't feel like this.

He doesn't want to feel like this.

Burke gives him another moment. Lets Castle collect himself. Kate always says to him _you're_ _lucky_ , because Burke goes after her when she's feeling shaky, but not him. Less walls to knock down, probably.

"Tell me, Rick. Does the boxing, the workouts, do they help?"

He nods, head bobbing. "Helps. Mostly just getting it out. You were right. I've been really angry." To downplay that admission, because it feels bright and hard and wrong, to be so angry, he gives Burke a twist of his lips, a joke. "And boxing keeps me from wanting to strangle Kate when she's moody and unresponsive. So it definitely works."

Another notation made, though Castle doesn't see how that was worthy of being written down. He was joking. Mostly.

She's always been frustrating in the extreme, nothing new. The summer she was shot at Montgomery's funeral - he thinks that would've put an end to them, if she had allowed him close, allowed him at her side. Neither of them had the guts or fortitude for lasting through the dark days.

"How have the nightmares been?"

He flinches at that too, tries to wipe the feeling off his face. "Consistent."

An eyebrow.

He sighs. "Every night. I've at least managed not to wake her. I slip out of bed."

Burke leans his head against his hand, a finger over his top lip. "She wakes up, you know. And you're gone."

A sharp intake of breath has him bowing forward, scrubbing his eyes with both hands. He feels like shit. "How - often does she - did she tell you if it's - I know she has insomnia and being pregnant makes it worse. I should have-"

"These are things you should be talking to her about. Reassurance would go a long way, on both sides, you know."

Reassurance. "Lie to her? Tell her I'm not-"

Burke sighs, that heavy and disappointed sigh, and Castle would swear therapists aren't supposed to be judgmental like this. But he's disappointed in himself too. Because when did reassuring his wife start to seem so impossible?

"I think, perhaps," Burke starts, "that you will find that when you share this with Kate, you yourself will be reassured even as you are reassuring. Do you understand?"

"No."

Burke's lips twitch, as if he thinks Castle is funny. "The strength of your relationship lies in the _two_ of you, not one shouldering a burden for the other and vice versa. Surely you've learned that by now - when she separated from you to protect you, when you kept secret your investigation by erasing your own memory-"

"Oh." The weight of that thought, how he's doing the same thing, how the two of them keep making the same mistakes - it's a bitter taste in his mouth. So he uses humor to deflect. "Talk to her. Pretty cliche advice, Dr Burke."

"There's a reason it's cliche." Burke is smiling though. "Our time is up. And now for your homework this week - do not leave the bed, instead wake her up."

"What? No. I'm not waking her up-"

"Homework," Burke says, pointing his finger, his voice commanding.

It makes Castle's spine straighten. "Yes, sir," he says immediately. And it's not exactly a joke.

But Burke takes it as such, smiling, waving him off as he rises from the chair. Rick does the same, shaking the doc's hand, thanking him.

As he turns to leave, he has the sinking sensation that tonight is going to get ugly.

 **x**

"Rick?" She eyes the glass as she unwraps it, newspaper ink smearing her fingers. "Rick, where did all of these come from? I don't remember-"

A crash has her turning, an eyebrow raised as Castle lifts a leg over spilled boxes. "Don't worry. All linens," he says. "You called?"

She watches him in the narrow space between dining room and kitchen, something in the back of her mind noting how much he fills her old place, how much _more_ he is, somehow, than he's ever been.

"Just wondering why we need another set of wine glasses," she says finally, tilting the glass to him.

"Especially when you can't drink," he laughs. He plucks the glass from her fingers and peers down into the box set on top of the counter. "Yeah, pointless. All of it."

"I just meant. We don't have the room."

"I think they were mine," he adds, shakes his head when she opens her mouth to offer. "No, don't need 'em. We'll have the guys take it back to storage. It said 'kitchen' so I thought it was the missing pans."

"Oh, actually, I did find the pans," she says, turning to the cabinet beside the stove, peeking in. "Put them there."

His hand is warm on her back, trailing at her spine as he bends over behind her. "Yeah, excellent. Where were they?"

"Box labeled bathroom."

He grunts, straightening with her. "Of course. Bathroom. Well-"

"It had bathroom stuff in it too," she gives, shrugging. "You can't blame them. They tried. They did all of this for us because we couldn't hack it."

Castle leans back against the counter, a hand reaching for her hip, digging down into the front pocket of her jeans. She waits for it, holding back just a little, and then he tugs, hard enough to make her stumble even though she knew it was coming.

Whew, he's strong. And he likes it, too; she can see that much on his face.

"We couldn't hack it, huh?"

She shakes her head. "Both of us. Scared chickens."

"Hmm." He's not even really listening to her, is he? He's watching her mouth move. He kisses and touches a lot more than he used to, like she's the most intriguing thing in his world, like he's not sure it's real.

Not sure they're both still alive.

"I'll be sure to thank my mother for labeling everything incorrectly," he says, still studying the shape of her face and the look in her eyes.

She leans in against his chest, that hot rush of feeling in her guts at the tension of his muscle, the hard cut to his abs. His work-outs have become intense; she wonders if she's supposed to be worried about him.

His fingers play at the hem of her shirt, teasing the bare skin at her spine. His eyes have fallen to her mouth again, and she realizes her tongue is licking her bottom lip. Their hips are pressed so close together, her heartbeat kicking up.

"I have to be at the range in an hour," she reminds him.

"Then we'll send all the boxes back to storage," he says, his voice dipping so low it drags at her stomach. "We have most of it. We can buy whatever we lack. We should, shouldn't we? Buy all new for our family."

She finds herself leaning in, inhaling the sweat and dust of his last few hours' work. He's still stroking her skin along her sides. It makes goose bumps prickle her arms and her hips tilt into him.

"That's it," he hums, his eyes narrowing. Feral. How he wants her. How much the summer has brought out the heat in them both. "Care to re-christen your dining room table?"

She lets out a stunned breath, already molten for him. "That's a way better idea than unpacking."

"I've been known to have them, time to time."

 **x**

She qualifies after her first round, despite the persistent ache that bands across her ribs and makes her short of breath. Despite getting only a handful of hours of sleep last night, and Castle waking her with one of his nightmares, and unpacking boxes all day, trying to settle into the apartment.

She's still got it.

Her silhouette comes back with the requisite groupings of three, the shots near-perfect, and the range master signs the bottom to make it official. Kate, still in her protective eyewear and earpieces, heads back down the range to watch Castle finish.

He's two-fisting it, but when he sees her in his peripheral vision, he acts the cowboy, shooting with one hand, aiming almost without looking.

He's very good. Somewhere in the middle of everything, she forgot how good a marksman he is, how naturally accurate his aim. He has a feel for it on the range that used to desert him out in the field. And then, somewhere along the way, her shadow became noticeably good under pressure.

Became her partner.

He turns to her, the gun flat on the table, and he wriggles his eyebrows as he recalls the target. It comes on its track, and she shakes her head as she sees the perfect circles. He was having fun too, it seems, a tight cluster at the silhouette's groin.

"You're a nut," she says, rolling her eyes. He can't hear her completely with the ear protection, but surely he knows her well enough. She reaches out and shoulders past him for the target, taking it off the clip. "Good shooting, partner."

He grins, more eyebrow action (he _did_ just get laid before this), and then he takes her own silhouette from her fingers, unfolds it. "Hey, good _job_ , Beckett!"

She pokes him for sounding surprised, and he hands it back to her, still talking too loud to be heard over the sounds of the range.

"Hey, dinner after?"

"Clean your gun, Castle," she yells back, shoving his target into his stomach so he's forced to take it. And then before he can make a smarmy remark about having _already_ cleaned his gun, she smacks her hand over his mouth.

And contrary to his entire demeanor, he clasps her hand and presses the softest of kisses to her fingers. _In love with you,_ he mouths.

She melts, ire and smirk replaced with the sense of having everything right here before her. Everything.

He releases her to turn around and unload his gun, carefully taking it apart, and she rouses and leaves him to the task, taking her official clearance with her.

 **x**

Dinner is at one of their usuals from back in the day, an Italian place near the apartment. Castle orders spaghetti and meatballs, which is as standard for him as a cheeseburger, and she goes with the squash ravioli, because that's his wife - always pushing it a little, going out on a limb to try something new.

No wine, he won't without her (he tells himself), and that cute little crease appears on her forehead when he asks for water.

"You can-"

"No point," he says easily, cutting her off. She doesn't have her weapon back yet, but soon. And her badge. And then he'll feel better about being out in public. As it is, he won't be drinking for a while yet. He doesn't like feeling out of control when now so much that is precious is at his side.

"Girl or boy?" she says, taking a slice of bread.

"You first."

She wrinkles her nose. "Despite what you said, I think it's a boy. You?"

"What did I say?" He sets his elbows on the table, watching her. "I'm guessing girl."

Her eyebrow lifts. "See. Like your dream."

Rick blinks. "My - dream?"

She tilts her head and breaks the bread in half, reaches for the butter dish. "In the hospital, you said your life flashed before your eyes. Well. I guess future life? A vision. Something like that. It was sweet."

It takes his breath away, her casual mention of what felt like the last moment of his life. Pain and her body collapsing, her head rolling to meet his panicky, frantic gaze.

"Castle," she says, snapping her fingers. "You have to talk about it or it _never_ gets better."

He scrubs both hands down his face. "I know. I know. Dr Burke said the same."

"Where do you think I got it," she murmurs.

He blows out his breath. "You said - my dream?"

"You told me in the hospital. You don't remember?"

"No?" Does he remember a dream? He's had so many dreams lately that they're a blur of blood and terror. Always a new nightmare, variations on a theme. "But please, refresh my memory. I could do with some new dreams."

She gives him a sympathetic sigh, her fingers oily with butter. She's dipping her bread in the oil and garlic. "You had a vision for us. Brunch, sitting around the table with our kids."

"I did?" He can't remember any- "Oh."

"Yeah. You said-"

"Twins," he chokes out. "Holy-"

"My thought exactly," she laughs. Her eyes are bright. "Who knows."

"I'd forgotten all about that, until you brought it up." He shakes his head, slides his hand across the table to her. She glances at his hand for a moment like she doesn't know why it's there, and then she drops her bread to the plate and takes his hand.

Ah, him versus the bread. And he won. That's comforting.

"You remember the dream?"

"Not really. Overshadowed by other dreams," he says, squeezing her thumb. He releases her, lets her get back to the bread. "Feeling good?"

"Starving," she admits, a chagrinned look as she stuffs the bread in her mouth.

He chuckles, shakes his head. "Go on. I nearly lost out to that bread." She doesn't understand, he sees, but she keeps chewing, and he can't help the grin. "You haven't had any morning sickness either."

She shakes her head, agreeing with him, but doesn't answer. Too busy chewing.

Castle props his elbow on the table, leaning into her. "Whatever my dream was, how soon until we know if it's twins?"

She chokes a little on her swallow, one of her eyes watering. She swipes it away, shaking her head. "No." Another rough swallow. "No, you said twins, but the girl was older."

"Oh." He really only has pieces. The girl doesn't stand out to him, just the three little forms around a breakfast table, sunshine, orange juice. Coffee. "But you said you think it's a boy?"

She shrugs, already buttering another piece of bread. "Just a feeling. Always thought we'd have a boy."

Always thought-

"What?"

She flushes pink, bread at her lips, and she takes a hasty bite, speaks around her hand. "Just. You know. We talked about it." She swallows, licks her lips free of butter. "Cosmo." At his look, she straightens up, points her finger at him. "We are _not_ naming him Cosmo."

He grins at that, ignoring the bread. She can have it if she's that hungry. If _they're_ that hungry. "That's a good pot."

"Pot? What's a good pot?" She gives him a bewildered look, brows together, still eating bread.

He leans in, speaking softly so she'll lean in as well. "Naming rights."

"Naming-" Her eyes narrow, that competitive spark leaping to life between them. "What's the bet?"

"Boy. Or girl."

She hesitates, just a fraction, but enough to let him know she's not so confident. He's not either, but he has a dream on his side (which he doesn't exactly remember, but who cares?) and he wants to make this fun for them, for her. He wants this pregnancy to be what it would have been before they were desperate and broken and struggling to come back.

A lot of fun. It would have been - a whole lot of fun.

"You're on," she says decisively, sticking out her hand.

He shakes, grinning, and her returning grin is so delighted and evil and _hot_ that it makes his pants uncomfortable and sets his stomach growling.

She laughs, withdrawing her hand, and she shoves the bread towards him. "Swear I can share. Have at it, Castle."

He loves when she's feeling cocky enough to call him Castle.

 **x**


	3. I Might

**Juice Cups and Coffee Mugs**

* * *

 **III. I Might**

 **x**

She wakes violently, finds herself caught by his arms. He's pulling her in. Confusion burns away with the wild look in his eye and she immediately opens to him, pushing their bodies together in the bed.

She is _so_ damn glad he woke her for this.

"It's okay," she whispers. Her lips press a kiss against his temple, the corner of his eye.

"Night-nightmare," he chokes out.

"I know, I know," she murmurs. She would take them if she could. If she _does_ have nightmares, she doesn't remember them. She wishes her husband could be, in sleep, more like he is in the light - easy-going and without a care.

"I'm okay," he gutters. He doesn't sound okay at all.

It tells on him, these nightmares. He must not really be so easy-going and carefree if he's haunted at night. Every night. Her own insomnia often drives her to consciousness at odd hours, three in the morning being a favorite for heart burn and tossing and turning, and lately she's discovered he isn't in bed. Twice she's found him on the couch, head tilted back, snoring. But more often - he's just awake, roaming the apartment, touching things as if to be sure they exist.

"I'm okay," he shudders.

"It's fine if you're not," she promises. Her mouth at his ear. He shivers when she speaks, and his arms tighten. He's clinging, and he's never been one to cling. Too alpha male for that, too sure of himself. She sighs. "It's okay, it'll be okay."

He grunts and nods against her, but there is no slack at all in his grip.

She opens her mouth, not quite sure what will come out until it does, only sure that the sound of her voice will banish the utter darkness, wake him again.

"Your hair is getting long, babe." She pets the silky strands at his neck, combing her fingers through it. "A little shaggy. Curls at your neck." She likes it, didn't know she would. She slips her fingers under the collar of his t-shirt, swirls circles at the vertebrae, comes back to his hair. "All these changes."

He takes in a hard breath and lets it out again, stutters. His arms flinch around her.

"Your arms are thick-" She finds her throat closing up when she says _thick_ , breathless by the feel of him surrounding her. "Impressive, you know. And right here." She touches the corner of his eye with her thumb. "The sun on your face has made these lines whiter where they've crease, so that it looks like you're always smiling even when you're not. And that makes me happy. I love your smile."

He makes a sound into the pillow and she smiles herself, slides her hand farther under his t-shirt to feel the heat of his back. The flex of taut muscle as he takes gulping breaths.

"Kinda makes you look like a surfer dude." He snorts and she pets his neck. "I had a huge crush on this guy who surfed. First semester at Stanford. He never went to class. He always came back to the dorms salty."

He doesn't speak, but she can feel him listening, focusing on her now and not the nightmare.

"I thought he was everything I wanted, entirely opposite of my parents and their way of life."

Castle lets out a bubble of laughter and she squeezes him in return, pressing his shoulder into her chest. He's better. She's helped; she can help him. She couldn't do a thing to prevent the trauma in their own home, but she can do this now.

"What else?" he says, voice gruff with emotion.

She tries to collect her train of thought once more, where she was headed with that story. "Oh, hm. I used to follow him to the Student Union at dinner, and he would always notice me, catch me at it. He would smile like - like your smile - and ask me to sit and eat with him."

"Mm, of course he noticed you," Castle says. "Who wouldn't notice you?"

"Plenty," she whispers. "He caught me following him, but you were the first to follow _me_."

"Ah, I must be rubbing off on you."

She smiles against his temple. "Why's that?"

"Getting sentimental. Dare I say maudlin?"

She scratches her nails against his shoulder. "Not _rubbing_ off on me, so much as _in_ me. Your kid."

"Oh my, Beckett, you went there." And he's laughing at her now, but Kate - she's struck by the sudden massive _truth_ of what she's said.

She's pregnant. He got her pregnant. She's going to have his baby.

Oh my God.

 **x**

When she arrives home, the incongruity of stepping into her old apartment and finding unfamiliar furniture and the all-too-familiar eagerness of Rick Castle throws her off-balance.

"I have something for you," he says, so excited for her that he's barely let her inside the door. "For us." He takes her hand, drops her keys on the counter as he tugs her towards the kitchen table.

She follows, still orienting, but she's surprised when Castle catches her by the hip and slides his hands over her eyes. He pushes in at her back, nudging her into place, and she has the wild thought _like this again?_ and immediately _this is easier with the blindfold._

He draws his hands away, mouth at her ear. "Voila!"

Gray. And elephants. All over the material, cute doe-eyed elephants.

Not sex. A baby blanket.

Kate winces. Her fingers lift to stroke the baby blanket he's bought, trying to figure out a way to say it that won't hurt his feelings. "It's - very soft."

He's quiet. He must be able to sense something is off.

Chaplin bumps his nose into her knee and she reaches to stroke the dog just like she was petting the baby blanket. "I'm - sick to death of elephants," she sighs, turning her head to look at Castle. His face is so very carefully neutral. She doesn't know that means. "Oh, damn. I'm sorry, it's lovely, Rick. I-"

"You're sick of elephants." He rouses as if from a dream, shakes his head. He walks around her to touch the blanket on the table. "Right. Of course you are."

"Please don't," she says. She doesn't want a fight about this. "I just - I haven't given the decor much thought."

"But the nursery's half done," he protests, gestures across to what used to be her dining room. They've begun closing it up with dry wall, a door has been framed. It will be the baby's room, right between the kitchen and the office. He grunts. "It was just a thought, Kate."

"A really sweet thought," she sighs, sadness tugging at her. "I should love it. I would have loved it before, the elephants, but I don't think I do anymore."

"It reminds you of your mom."

She scowls, ducking her chin. "It reminds me of my mom's _case_. And that's-" She clenches her fists, puts them behind her back, only to have Chaplin lick her knuckles, breaking the tension. She laughs a little, turns to rubs the dog's ears. "My mom's case did this to us, you know? I don't want that reminder in my baby's room."

There's a heartbeat of silence, and Kate sighs, sinking into a kitchen chair to pet the dog. Charlie licks her chin, wriggling in close to greet her. Castle pulled her inside so fast that Chaplin didn't get his chance, and now the dog is making up for it.

She doesn't want elephants. She was being honest when she said she hasn't thought about it, but now she's thinking a little, and she doesn't - she can't do it.

"Okay," Castle says slowly. "Then we'll forget the elephants."

He sounds only a little disappointed, but she won't look at his face and confirm it. The dog nudges his nose under her hand and she keeps petting him.

Castle touches her arm, takes her by the elbow. "Come out with me, right now, and let's pick something better. A theme you do like. We can walk Chaplin."

At that, Chaplin gives a low woof, tail swishing. He knows _walk_ , for sure.

Kate is still in her heels and dress pants after her second grilling with 1PP. Her feet hurt. Her head is killing her. The scar near her sternum aches. But he wanted to surprise her with how much work he's done on the room, and she really does love him for that, for trying for them.

She can try too. She _will_ try. Being hormonal and frustrated with the bureaucratic obstacles at One Police Plaza aren't good enough excuses. "Alright. Fix me some toast while I go to the bathroom and change, and we'll leave right after."

Castle kisses her, a loving smack on her lips, framing her cheeks in that way she finds restrictive and overbearing. "I love you," he says, and he's grinning so widely that her irritation melts.

"Love you back." She draws his hands off her face, kisses each palm while he beams at her. "Toast."

"Yes, ma'am."

She turns for the bedroom, bringing her phone with her. She has a line of itchy, dried sweat down her back from the crowded subway, and she tugs her shirt out of her pants, wishing she had a moment to sit, relax.

"Did I tell you that you look hot today?" he calls out.

She laughs and gives him the finger, disappearing inside the bedroom. It's a matter of minutes, bathroom and brushing her teeth, changing into casual clothes. She drinks the last of the water on the bedside table, which makes her turn right back around and go to the bathroom again, but that's about seven glasses so far today, and she feels like she's doing everything she can to be healthy for their kid.

She pats her stomach, rubs her thumb into the lower scar, wincing.

It hurts today. It's been a while since it hurt like this.

When she re-enters the living room, Castle holds out two slices of toast and one of her vitamins. She takes all three, pops the chewable, and allows him to open the front door ahead of her. Chaplin, on his leash, is trying to drag them down the hall, eager for outside. She has to push her phone into her pocket to eat, so Castle draws his out instead to set their high-tech new alarm.

The door locks behind them with a press of a button, and she knows they both feel a lot more secure. The system is top of the line; it matches the one they installed in the Hamptons and at Martha's apartment. Alexis refused; her room mates didn't want to go through the hassle. She worries about Alexis.

But back here, in her old place, it just feels like they're more hidden, off the grid. Like if someone came looking for them, they would be hard to find. The apartment is so much smaller than the loft that even though they're often right on top of each other, there are just no places for an enemy to hide.

No one can jump out at them. No one can threaten them in their own home.

"You good?"

"Yes," she says quickly. "Of course." She tears the last of the toast into two pieces and stuffs them into her mouth.

He places his hand at her hip and ushers her down the hall, into the wide service elevator with Chaplin. She leans into Rick because he likes her leaning, and she rejected his elephants. His arm draws around her, a loose embrace.

"Cute baby things," he says, ushering them off the elevator when the doors open. "What were you thinking?"

"I don't know." She can't picture it, the nursery, the decor, even the baby, really. She's never had the imagination he has, but she's also not really thought about the details like this. "I liked the grey. It was soft, and pretty. And gender neutral."

He chuckles, releasing her to open the front door. She steps back out into the summer heat, which hasn't relented despite the sun beginning to set. She waits for him on the sidewalk and bends over to pet Chaplin as he comes outside.

"Gender neutral is good," Castle says. "And we can do grey no matter what the theme."

Oh. A theme. She finds herself disheartened by the idea of being... being like everyone else? Being normal? They haven't told people; she almost doesn't want to tell people. She wants it to be their wonderful secret.

"Does there have to be a theme?" she says finally, taking the leash from him. Wanting to. Chaplin makes a dizzy sort of circle around her and she switches hands, tugs on the harness to keep him from tangling her up. "Charlie, darling, you need to walk at my side."

The dog drops back at her word; he really does know better. He wasn't used to the city at first, and he was scared, but he enjoys their walks now. She tries to take him places he hasn't been before, expose him to New York a bit at a time, but Castle mostly takes him to the Park.

"You just called the dog _darling_."

She shoots Castle a look for that, but he's snorting into his fist. "Shut up."

"No, no, it was cute. Really cute. Not much like you, but I find that adorable."

"It's the damn hormones," she mutters as they walk.

"I've noticed. You've - been really very tender to quite a number of things, most especially inanimate objects."

"Oh, God," she groans. "That bad?"

"You have a variety of pet names for various things in the loft." His grin fades. "Apartment. Sorry. It slipped out."

"Technically, it is a loft," she offers, taking a fistful of his Captain America shirt. He looks very super hero himself these days. "Top floor. But you know, Castle, loft just means _home_ for you, for both of us. So call it the loft. It won't confuse me."

He gives her a half-shrug, and she knows he won't. Loft is also where they were shot, and her apartment - she knows he doesn't want to start blending them. Nightmares are bad enough.

"You know, if it _is_ a girl, I want to decorate the whole room with unicorns."

She laughs, surprised at that, and Chaplin turns his head to look at them, wagging his tail. Castle moves forward enough to scratch at Charlie's neck, patting him. "Hey, Chap, you're doing good with the pedestrian traffic."

"He really is. Proud of you, Chaplin."

"I heard you bite back that _darling._ "

She rolls her eyes. But she really _did_ almost give Chaplin another term of endearment. It's that bad. She wonders if while watering the plants-

"Yeah, the orchid and the peace lily from the hospital," Castle fills in, as if he can read her mind. "I heard you praise that peace lily for springing back to life."

"It's really remarkable. We got so busy moving everything that we neglected the plants."

"The peace lily is hardy, and the orchids are desert plants." He laughs, squeezing her fingers. "Not a good sign for Chaplin though. Forgetting to water him."

"Or the baby," she says, but she draws their hands to her stomach. Not supposed to water a baby but- "Poor baby."

Castle stretches her fingers across the span of her torso, rubs his thumb up and down. He has a crazy wide grin on his face. "Poor baby... girl."

She laughs, and it draws the sting out of the day, the interview at headquarters that delays her return to the Twelfth. She wraps her hand around the end of the leash and bumps her shoulder to Castle's. "Baby _boy_."

"Yellow is gender neutral too," he says, leading them to the right when they end the block. She follows, watching the way the light at their backs gilds the buildings, makes the air rosy.

"Yellow is fine," she murmurs. "But that grey - I don't want it too bright. I want the baby to _sleep_ in there, you know. You do too."

"So that's a no to pink?"

"Green?" she says, watching the leaves overhead from the trees which line the sidewalk.

"Sure. Brown?"

"Huh. For a girl, I don't know-"

"Well if the walls are pale brown, then we could add accent colors - pink or yellow or green."

"I like your grey better," she murmurs. "I really did like that little blanket, Castle."

He gives her a side look, but he says nothing. She doesn't think he believes her, or if he does, part of him is still stung by her separate feelings.

He's leading her towards a row of boutique shops that have sprouted up in her absence from this neighborhood. Art galleries, an eclectic jewelry store, pet supply, clothing at every other doorway. She hasn't noticed before, but most of the businesses are dog-friendly, stickers on the windows proclaiming pets are allowed inside.

No wonder there are so many dogs at the cafes when she brings Charlie along.

"Alright, Kate, grey it is." Castle stops and opens the door to a store she was about to walk right past. "Let's try this again: voila. Baby heaven."

But _baby heaven_ crawls down her spine, and he must see the look on her face, because he takes the leash from her and gives her a sharp hug, hard enough to crush the pain in her chest.

"Not here," she gets out, pushing past him and inside the bright, white store.

It takes a couple deep breaths and her fingers rubbing the knot of scar tissue at the curve of her rib for her to get herself under control again.

Castle has the leash looped tightly around his forearm, keeping Chaplin close, and Kate points to the lower-lying displays. "Careful of his tail." Her voice sounds strange, too airy. She has her back to Castle.

"I got it," he murmurs. He takes her wrist in his fingers, rubbing. "You go ahead and look, sweetheart."

She startles, half-turning to him, but he waves her off, something like embarrassment in his eyes.

He clears his throat. "Endearments must be catching."

But she won't be waved off, not for that, and instead she slides an arm around his waist and kisses his jaw very softly. "Don't worry," she murmurs. "It just means, despite everything, we're happy."

 **x**

There are a lot of elephants. And puppies, kittens, lambs, ducks, frogs. He loves all of them, so adorable and sweet. So innocent.

His wife isn't happy with any of them.

Of course not. No, what Beckett chooses, finally, is the collection of bedding mapped in a city skyline. Boxy apartment buildings set close together, a navy print, with turquoise detailing - the window shutters, the line of a tree trunk. He thinks she's having fun with it, even if she doesn't purchase as much as he would.

They walk home together, hand in hand. She has the leash while he carries the frou-frou pink paper bag with their purchases, and he feels accomplished. City theme, her aversion to cutesy animals, doesn't matter in the end. He knows they'll do it their own way, that they'll have to, but sometimes he forgets just how different this all is.

What they've been through to get to this point, who they are, the way their life looks. It's not puppy dogs and ducks. It's probably more like a city skyline with turquoise detailing, the two of them resting in their silver lining.

"We did good," she says in the middle of his musing. She's bending over to pet the dog, patting his side, ruffling the fur. "Didn't realize shopping for the unborn could be so fun."

"The unborn," he huffs. "Try calling it something with a little more warmth, Beckett."

"Does sort of sound like the undead, doesn't it? How about Spike."

He laughs, turning onto their block and pulling her by the hand with him. "Poor baby. Spike. Come on."

"Staypuff?"

Castle groans, but he likes this side of her. Teasing, light, messing with him a little. "Sparkles."

"Spark-" She breaks off into a laugh. "Poor _boy_. No to Sparkles."

"Eleven weeks is what size?" he says. "Was it fig?"

"Mm. I don't know."

"You didn't look at the app?"

"The app is fucking scary," she says, coming in quickly against his back and pressing her face to his shoulder. He's surprised by the duck, and when he tries to look at her, she's shaking her head. "It has those 3D model videos? And it looks like an alien. Like demon spawn."

He can't help chuckling, but she's truly disgusted. "Okay, alright. We'll delete the app. No more app, Kate." He shifts his grip on the bag and untangles their hands, sliding his arm around her waist. "Our poor little Krell."

Kate tilts her head, and he can see her mind working, trying to catch up to him. "Wait. No. The extinct aliens from _Forbidden Planet_?"

He shrugs. "You did say alien."

"I also said demon spawn. And we're not calling it Beelzebub."

"Bee. Or Bub?!"

" _No_."

He grins, drops it. She's acting disgruntled, but he knows better. The sky is dark blue with the summer night, and she feels warm beside him, her shoulder occasionally bumping his own.

"What about a real name?" she says softly. He glances her way; they're almost at the apartment building and she's delaying, rubbing two fingers at his arm. "You want to know?"

"I don't know," he admits. "I sort of want to be surprised. I'm making a list of girl names."

"Already?" She pauses outside their building, tugging on Chaplin's leash. "You have - you know of names you like?"

He smiles, trying to be kind. "I have done this before."

"Oh." Some of her disbelief fades like light during twilight. So does some of the joy. "You have."

"Feels pretty new for me this time, though." Maybe he shouldn't have said that. "You let me talk nonstop and go to doctor's appointments, so..." He opens the main door, holds it for her and Chaplin.

"Meredith didn't let you attend doctor's appointments?"

He comes in behind her, swipes the fob over the lock of the inner door. "Not really about letting me. She kept forgetting to tell me she had one. I missed half."

Kate sighs. She opens the inner door for them, Chaplin going in ahead of them with that high-stepping happiness. When she turns back, he can't read her eyes. "So you're telling me your list has all of Alexis's rejected names?"

He grins, seeing the look on her face, and he ushers her to the elevator. "Since you put it that way."

"I don't want to be surprised by the name," she says finally, leaning back against the wall while he punches the call button. "So tell me your list."

"Emily."

Her face brightens. "Oh." The elevator opens and they step on, maneuvering around Chaplin.

"See? I'm good at this. Emily. Claire. Anna-"

"Oh, those are good names," she murmurs. "Okay, you can stop. Stop. I changed my mind. Don't tell me either. Let it be a surprise."

"You sure?"

She nods, biting her lip, and he can't help reaching up and combing a strand of hair behind her ear.

She's beautiful.

The door opens and she touches a kiss to his hand, leads him off the elevator.

She's right. It just means they're happy.

 **x**


	4. Have This

Juice Cups & Coffee Mugs

* * *

 **IV. Have This**

 **x**

She can tell he doesn't want to leave her.

"First day of school," she acknowledges, their fingers twined despite how bad they are at the subway. They are so bad. Neither of them have the balance or stamina, and the subway's swaying feels entirely more violent than it ever has before. "You can hide in the bushes if you need to."

He scoffs, tilts his chin in that new way of his. She thinks it's acquired from the trauma, back when his shoulder was stiff and it threw his body out of alignment. "I don't need to hide in the bushes while you start your first day back at work."

She smothers her grin. "But you want to."

"I want to a little bit," he sighs.

She steps into him, their bodies colliding as the subway rockets around a turn. The underground has felt, this time around, like it willfully hurtles them into space, like this is a rodeo and it wants to buck them off. She never used to feel so skittish around mass transit.

His arm around the pole opens to her and she tucks herself into him, heedless of the morning commute. She's headed back to the Twelfth, back to life again, and she hopes he's not going to miss her. "You gonna miss me?"

"Naw. I'm gonna miss the awesome cases." He lifts his hand and lightly clasps her neck. "The Beckett flavored ones. With zombies and CIA double agents and aliens."

She smiles and lays her cheek against his shoulder. "You gonna miss the unborn?"

He squeezes her neck for that, then digs his thumb into that spot just to one side that makes her knee twitch and her muscles spasm. She grunts with relief as tingles scatter across her back.

She wants him all the time. This is pregnancy. No morning sickness at all, she wants him all the time, she cries at commercials, and the thought of walking into the Twelfth Precinct and sitting down behind the captain's desk makes her stomach roll.

"You're going to do great," he murmurs.

"I know."

"Of course you do. That's why I married you."

She laughs. Her arrogance - also known as confidence - has always gotten her in trouble in therapy sessions. "Thought it was because I was tall."

"That's just why I wrote about you."

She smiles and straightens up, seeing their stop approaching. Her stop. She runs a hand down his chest and tugs his tie. "You look good this morning, Rick Castle."

He preens, beaming at her eye to eye again. Her heels are killer; she's going to be hurting by the end of the day.

"Slay that book pitch," she tells him, leaning in to press her lips to his in a good-bye.

"Slay that precinct," he answers, lips twitching up in amusement.

She steps back, the subway car comes to a jerking halt at her stop. The doors open; she releases his tie. He smooths it down, his eyes on hers, but he reaches out one last time, brushes the backs of his fingers against her stomach.

She doesn't even mind; he's only saying good-bye to them both. He knows how fleeting, how precious, how the world changes in the blink of an eye.

She steps over the threshold of the subway car and out onto concrete, is immediately swept forward in the crush of people heading for the top.

This is the first day of the rest of her life.

 **x**

Castle won't let himself be nervous, not here. Black Pawn is familiar ground, home territory, and he won't be nervous about pitching a new book.

His phone vibrates in his pocket and he removes it to glance at the alert. Kate. She's at her desk; _good luck in your meeting xoxo._

Rick feels better knowing she's safely inside again. Back in the fold despite the way 1PP gave her the run-around. With Kate in command of the Twelfth, he feels safer, New York City feels safer.

Tenth floor of the Black Pawn Publishing offices feels safer.

"Rick? We're ready for you," Gina says, popping her head out of the conference room and then leaving the door open.

He stands up, pushing his phone back into his pocket. He's not doing this because of the baby, or because Beckett is once again Captain of the Twelfth. He's doing this because he has nightmares without fail, because Dr Burke says writing is good for his soul, because something's gotta give.

He steps inside the conference room, darkly furnished with floor to ceiling windows to let in the light. He's usually in the less formal space down the hall, and the selection of this room for their venue is telling. He knows they weren't happy when he returned his advance on the next Nikki Heat, knows they're chafing at his stall tactics. Gina hasn't called him directly, but Mother has reported every instance when she's called Alexis instead.

 _What is your father doing?_ instead of _How is your father doing?_

He knows she's concerned in her own way, and that she shows it by asking about the nonexistent book. But it's not helpful. He can't write Nikki Heat right now; her life feels too inexorably bound to Kate's, and Kate's to his own, and together this baby. He won't write Nikki Heat into and out of death-defiance, not right now. So close to death defying of their own.

"Have a seat, Mr Castle."

He sits. Across from Gina, he sees, and there's his editor as well, George. George looks perturbed, as if he's been pulled away from his job and is struggling in the more professional setting. At the head of the table is the chairman of the board of directors, and he's wearing a suit that Castle knows costs more than his own. The severity of the air conditioning in the conference room makes Rick glad that his wife pushed the jacket into his hands this morning despite the heat of summer and how he sweltered on the subway.

"Gina tells me you're here about a new project," the chair says. Castle can't recall his name. He knows it, but it just won't come to him. He can see the edges of it, and for some reason it reminds him of a little blue pill, but he can't get at the word itself.

"I have the outline in broad strokes, but most of the work has already been done. Personal research, if you will." He flashes a smile, but much of his natural charm has rusted this past year. He's not sure it works; he's not sure the chairman can be charmed. "The main character is Rook, a kind of spin-off from the Nikki Heat series-"

"Who is Rook?" the chair says, furrowing his brow and turning to Gina.

"Secondary character in his best-selling-"

"Secondary?" Castle gapes. "He's a _main_ character and fia-"

"Rick," Gina says, flashing him a warning look. She _knows_ better. Why is she-?

Oh, damn. Politics. How could he have forgotten so quickly? The politics of this meeting require slippery diction. He knows that. He ought to be better than this, even if it has been years since he's pitched a book.

The chairman is frowning, faint lines across his forehead. Varga. That's his name.

"He's a foil to Nikki Heat," Castle says, once again inserting his own voice into these proceedings. More smoothly now. "In this project, Rook would take center stage, much like Derrick Storm in the Storm series-"

"He's my favorite," the chair says irrelevantly. Some relish in his tone.

"Yes, sir, exactly," Gina coos. "The man on top once more. Jameson Rook. He has his own backstory-"

It's not about the backstory. It's about the story as it goes south, as all hell breaks loose, the story of being shot and hoping for recovery, hoping he can get back out there again but not sure he has what it takes to go up against the very real fact of his own mortality-

"So you're going to do the same as Divergent, same as Twilight \- give readers the male's perspective of their female hero worship? We aren't looking for YA titles at Black Pawn."

Castle snaps to attention. "No. I'm not writing young adult. And this isn't about hero-worship of Nikki Heat. This is about what it takes to be a human being again. What life looks like. After tragedy."

At that, the chairman's eyes regain their spark. Something Castle has said has finally resonated, just enough, and he receives a studying pause for his efforts.

"Send Gina three chapters by the end of the month and we'll see." And then the Varga rises from the head of the table and indicates the door.

Just that fast, he's been dismissed.

Three chapters by the end of the month.

And Castle hasn't even _begun_ trying to write again.

What has he gotten himself into?

 **x**


	5. I See Tonight

**Juice Cups and Coffee Mugs**

* * *

 **V. I See Tonight**

 **x**

Kate rolls her head on her neck, shoulders knotted, still frustrated that Rick hasn't brought her lunch _again_.

Not that she asked him to.

She just really hoped - assumed - he would miss her.

He's been writing. This time she texted a leading nudge. There's been nada in response. She forgives him for it of course. He's been _writing_ and she knows that's a good thing.

She leans back in her office chair, weary. "Just leaves us at loose ends, doesn't it?"

Oh, goodness. She's talking to the unborn now. Great. The captain of the Twelfth Precinct is talking to the fetus that none of them know exists. Yay.

Kate shoves a hand through her hair and tugs, wishing it was shorter, less hassle. Wishing Castle would bring her lunch like she's hinted two hours ago.

Why did she not just _tell_ him? Flat out, _Castle, bring me lunch so I can take you into the storage room and grind one off on your thigh-_

Whew. Okay. Obviously she's hormonal. And starving. And why isn't he texting her back, why isn't he taking care of his knocked up traumatized wife? Now she's good and pissed and she has a meeting in five minutes with the District Attorney, the Chief of D's, her _union rep_ , and the Federal Agent who interviewed her in the hospital.

Great. _Thanks, Rick._

Dr Burke told her yesterday she's been 'testing' him as a provider, some kind of pregnant woman crazy instinct. She told him _no, he's a millionaire, I think we're set_. But maybe she is.

She's out of her first trimester, officially yesterday. She missed it somehow. They still haven't told anyone. She wonders if that's bad, working through the milestone so that it didn't even register. He did too, though, hunched at their shared office desk, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

He's writing again. He needs it. To rid himself of those demons, to write out his trauma. It's such a good thing, and since he's started, he controlled-collapses into bed exhausted each night, sleeps soundly, doesn't wake until her alarm. (She's been setting it about thirty minutes earlier, giving them time for that sleep-goofy sex that always makes him so happy and her so at ease for the rest of the day. She thinks he's on to her.)

Her union rep is going to be at this meeting. She doesn't know what that means. Maybe they're doing it as a precaution, a service to her in case she asks for one, for a witness, but _why_? She knows it's about the Mason Wood case, their last living link to the LokSat mess. Maybe it's because of Agent Greene, whom they were not particularly cooperative with.

Kate presses her palms flat to her desktop, centering herself. It does her no good, does the baby no good, to let her anxiety crest over things she can't control. Anxiety leads to self-destructive behaviors and panic attacks, and neither of those are good ways to live her life. She also doesn't think dumping a load of adrenaline into the unborn is ideal either.

It's okay. When she knows more, she'll handle it. She's the captain of her precinct, she has her gun back, and her husband is writing again. Like she told Dr Burke, _I think we're set._

"Look who we bumped into downstairs."

Kate lifts her head at the voice and finds a crowd in her office doorway: the Chief of Detectives, the union rep, and the DA - plus her husband.

"Rick," she says, checking her grin with a more private smile. She stands and steps out from her desk, gesturing for the men to enter. But she goes for her husband first.

Castle holds up a bag. "I was bringing lunch. I didn't realize you had a meeting." He leans in when she approaches, kisses her cheek. "I can go."

She turns her head at the last minute to catch his lips instead, his words smudged against her mouth. He gives a faint burr of surprise, a hand curling at her elbow, and when she steps back, he's glowing a little. She likes pregnancy on _him_ , to be honest, likes seeing what it does to him.

"No need. They're here about the case." She turns to the three men who have jockeyed for position just before her desk. "Aren't you."

"We are, yes." The DA crooks a finger at her union rep. "In case you wanted counsel. He's a lawyer for the police union-"

"Does she need counsel?" Castle cuts in. He's still holding the bag, and she can smell grilled chicken so poignantly it makes her mouth water.

"I'm sure I don't," she says to the room, deflating some of the testosterone. "And I'm sure they don't mind if we eat while they talk. Are we still waiting on Agent Greene?"

"Here I am."

She and Castle turn as one towards the door where a man in his late twenties is unbuttoning his suit jacket. He slips it off and extends his hand to her first, then Castle. She doesn't entirely remember him.

"Agent," Castle says with a nod, and she can see his grip blanching the younger man's knuckles. Show of force... pregnancy again, she thinks. He's been fairly strutting. It's a wonder Esposito and Ryan haven't figured it out.

She likes that too. He's proud of himself. And she's thoroughly distracted by that chicken and his male ego and her _female_ ego, and she should be paying attention to the now four men in her office.

"Shall we get started?" she says, drawing Castle with her towards the couch. She doesn't like giving up her place of power behind the desk, but for him and the grilled chicken he brought, she will.

Castle sits beside her and she sees the way the room conforms to them, orienting, getting into position. Bad news, then. She's fairly certain now.

"Agent Greene," the DA says, as if directing the players in a show they have all agreed to perform.

"This can't be good," Castle mutters. She's opening the bag and pulling out little plastic containers of grilled chicken, cut into strips from that place down the street, carrots in curling slices, tomatoes - all individually packaged.

"What-"

"Bought the chicken. But I brought the salad from home," he grins, flashing her such dazzling, happy pride she wants to kiss him.

And so she does. Because they died one night, bled to death together on his kitchen floor. She kisses him with tongue because it's her damn office and her husband who washed lettuce and diced the veggies all so she could have grilled chicken salad for lunch.

Even if he is about two hours late. "Thank you."

Some general throat-clearing, even from Castle, and she doesn't care. She's too busy bumping his shoulder with hers and mixing together her salad in the bowl he put at the bottom of the bag. He bought the seasoned grilled chicken down the street and he knows it's her favorite, plus the rice, and now her stomach is growling so loudly there's another embarrassed and polite round of throat-clearing.

Whatever. "Go, Agent Green," she says, shoveling salad into her mouth. She waves her fork at him to get him started.

"Ah, I've called this meeting today because of a few obstacles I've run up against." Agent Greene is watching her eat, and she uses a thumb to catch shredded cheese before it can fall. She eats it off her knuckle, challenging him with her eyes.

Castle chuckles beside her, skirts her thigh with a consoling brush of his fingers. She sits with her spine straight while he leans back in the couch, at ease. He has a burger dripping cheese back to the napkin on his thigh.

"What do you mean by obstacles?" Castle asks.

"National security obstacles," Agent Greene says immediately, crossing his arms over his chest and avoiding her gaze. "Namely, the sheer amount of secrets this pries out of the CIA, secrets they are completely unwilling to share with the public or the state of New York."

Kate swallows. "And what does that mean for the case?"

"It will now be something of a... tribunal. Senate meetings, closed door proceedings."

"What about the court record?" she says carefully. She's not exactly surprised.

"That's not why we're here," the DA inserts. He's a smooth man, more product in his hair than Castle has lined up on their bathroom counter. "This is about the case we _can_ try in New York City. Attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, two counts."

She blinks. For one crazy second she thinks, _I wasn't pregnant then._

Castle stirs. "Two counts - me and her?"

The DA gives a short nod. "Precisely. Along with kidnapping, conspiracy-"

"You're going to give up the federal case, the whole LokSat thing, to try-"

"No," Agent Greene shakes his head. "Separate cases, separate charges. Mason Wood has a lot of things he has to stand trial for, but this is one thing we can tease out of the complicated mess and nail him on, for sure, no question."

"But what about _motive_?" Castle growls. "How can you prove his motive without talking about LokSat? It's basically our word against his, and we already know I don't look so good to juries. Not with my... amnesia and missing time."

"You're fine," she says immediately, laying her hand on his knee, squeezing.

"I'm not, but thank you for the vote of confidence," he answers, a grimace on his face. His eyes are tightly creased, his tension is back and radiating. "You all think you can get him on attempted murder charges because the national security stuff means he'll get off. It will be swept under the rug. That's what you're telling us."

Agent Greene shifts on his feet. Kate stares at them. "No. You can't be serious. He's going to _walk_ -"

"He won't walk. It will just be... a process. Years. You do realize that the case against the conspirators of 9/11 is still ongoing? Anything to do with national security takes ages in the legal system."

Kate takes a breath, bringing herself together, focusing on her center. On the justice they've already accomplished, the threats to their family they've already eradicated.

"We're fine," Castle murmurs beside her, as if doing the same. "We're okay."

"Fast justice, speedy justice," the DA says. "That's what we're going for here. We want our day, Captain Beckett. We need our day in court. For your sake, for the city's sake - for the Twelfth."

She lets out her breath. Castle's warmth beside her is a reminder of life. "An attempted murder charge, two charges, means the case then becomes about _us_." She turns to her husband. He doesn't look surprised by that statement either, like he saw it coming. "Are we willing to do that?"

"The trial wouldn't take place until, well at this rate," the DA shakes his head, "probably beginning of February. So you have some time to get used to this, to do whatever is necessary to shield yourselves from the public eye."

Castle's jaw tenses.

February.

She turns to the DA. "February will be something of a challenge, since I'll be out on maternity leave by then."

Jaws drop, not least of all her husband's.

She goes on smoothly. "Can we work around that? Because I'm not bringing a newborn to the court room. I won't have that."

The DA recovers first, nodding, something more human on his face. "Of course we can. The judge will take into consideration your circumstances. We'll schedule your testimony days opposite each other to be sure someone is home. We can - well, you'll let me know about - my wife had to be, ah, shall we say on-hand? for feedings so I understand that might make things difficult, every few hours, that kind of thing."

She smiles at him widely, likes him a lot better now. "We'll talk it over," she answers, unwilling to make a unilateral decision without Castle feeling free to voice his opinion - to rant if he needs to do that. "We'll get back to you."

"By the end of the day?" the DA presses, checking his watch. "I need to file. There's something of a deadline we're up against."

Castle rouses, clutches her hand. "So long as you can promise the federal trial regarding LokSat continues, that this isn't an excuse to abandon the work that Kate has done for a decade or more, then we'll do it. We'll do it."

The whole room falls silent.

"I promise," Agent Greene says into the quiet. "I promise you - as long as I live, this will not be swept under the rug."

She's not sure the entirety of Greene's lifetime is that much of a promise.

 **x**

Castle rubs slowly at her back. It's the first time in nearly two weeks that she's made it home before five o'clock, and he's proud of her for it. She managed her time well, she stuck to her promise, and she even did it on the fly.

This morning when they woke up, they had no intention of throwing an impromptu dinner party to announce their news. But now that the powers-that-be know, it's probably better that their friends and family find out from them rather than the grapevine - or Page Six.

"Nervous?" he asks, digging a thumb into the spot just beside her shoulder blade.

She groans, hangs her head. She glances at him from behind the fall of her hair, going up on her toes as he kneads her back. "No, not nervous. I was nervous when we told them we'd gotten married without them. But not this."

"Hopefully they believe this is something that _should_ be done without them." Castle smiles so she gets the joke, and she rolls her eyes at him - even as the corner of her mouth twitches.

The knock at the door makes him jump, which he wasn't expecting, and she's silently laughing at him as she moves to answer it. She opens the door to his mother and Alexis, and they have twin smiles of knowing glee.

"You're pregnant, aren't you?" Alexis blurts out, already wrapping her arms around Kate.

He sees his wife's stiff frame relax, and she nods against Alexis's embrace, but she's looking at Martha. His mother immediately goes into fits, loud and colorful as always, and Castle approaches to stand by Kate's side, a little support if she needs it to withstand his mother's ways.

But she doesn't seem to need it.

"I knew it," Alexis crows, turning to him. "Oh, congrats, Dad. I'm so glad for you guys."

"For us?" he teases, hugging his daughter. "You're part of this too, you know."

Kate leans away from Martha and into Alexis. "We're so making you baby-sit."

"Boy or girl or do you know yet?"

"We don't know." Castle leads Alexis out of the entryway, and his mother and Kate step in behind them, heading for the kitchen. "We're probably going to leave it a surprise."

"How far along?" his mother is cooing, already touching Kate's stomach, patting and rubbing. He warned Kate that would happen, and so she's prepared, though he might be the only one who can see the subtle tension at the corners of her mouth.

"We're just out of the first trimester," Kate explains. "We wanted - after all our issues, the health stuff, my age - just to be sure."

"Oh, this is wonderful," his mother beams, "simply wonderful. Are we celebrating tonight? Oh, are the rest of them coming?"

"Yes and yes," Castle answers, and at that there's another knock on the door. He heads back, Kate pouring wine for his mother and Alexis, and when he opens the door, it's the Ryans on the other side with Esposito coming down the hall. "Come on in. Mother and Alexis are already here."

They step inside, he's taking an umbrella from Jenny and putting it in the coat closet when his mother bursts out with the news. "It's a celebration. Kate's pregnant!"

And that's when Lanie walks in.

Of course.

They're never going to hear the end of it.

 **x**

"Are you okay with this?" He tries not to touch so much, tries not to constantly palm her stomach and speak only to the unborn. But it's hard.

She laces their fingers together and rolls in bed, brings him with her at her back. "I'm not sure there's much choice. Mason Wood can't be let off the hook."

He sighs into her neck. "I meant tonight and Mother and how it went down. Lanie will forgive us, right?"

Kate strokes slowly at his forearm. "She will. She likes to get the most out of her ire. It'll be fine, Castle."

He tries to reassure her as well. "Agent Greene assures me that Mason Wood is in federal lockdown. They know better than to give him access to anything or anyone."

The breath she releases is telling, but while she battles her demons in the daylight, he does his at night in sleep. He can reassure her all he likes, but the second his eyes close, he knows their positions will be reversed.

"He tried to kill us, Castle." She pulls on his arm and he stops withholding, spoons behind her tight and close. She cuddles into his arm, stroking over his knuckles. "That part is true. I just don't know how they're going to prove any of it, how they can possibly think they'll be able to explain _why_."

"Or even how," he muttered. "In the basement of a CIA office. An undisclosed location, as they say. I don't know." He takes a careful breath, weighing his words. "But I think it's a good idea to leave it up to them. On their heads, not ours."

She's quiet for a long time, and he hopes she understands. It's not that he wants her to back off her mother's case, but hasn't it been enough? Isn't it _done_ already?

Maybe it's never done.

Kate turns in his arms, her eyes meeting his. So much unfathomable depth. He has no idea what she's thinking.

Until she cups the side of his face and rubs her thumb over his bottom lip. It's always been her form of regret. "I don't know that I can. If we're doing this, Castle, then aren't we in it?"

It doesn't hurt at all like he thought it would. He's not even _worried_. "I only meant that the stress is someone else's. The DA will build his case and we'll do whatever necessary to support that. But it's not on you, Kate, to make it all come together. This - _this_ \- is not a quest."

She blinks, withdraws her hand. For an instant, he regrets even saying it, how much it must have sounded like an accusation, how much he realizes he meant it like one.

But then she catches his hand and presses his knuckles into that place below her ribs. He can feel the scar raised under her thin sleep shirt. He can feel her heart pounding.

"This is not a quest," she repeats, like a vow.

It is a vow.

He leans in and kisses her.

 **x**


	6. Star Light

**Juice Cups & Coffee Mugs**

* * *

 **VI. Star Light**

 **x**

"Hey, I'm off," she whispers in the phone. She stands just under the air conditioning vent, letting it cool her before she has to face pedestrian commuter traffic.

Castle grunts on the phone, almost laughing. "Why are you whispering?"

She bites her lip, chuckling, and shakes her head even though he can't see it. "Afraid if I speak too loudly, another issue will come up."

"Perish the thought," he exclaims.

"Are you writing?" she smiles. He always sounds half distracted when he's writing. And he'll use ridiculous phrases. "I can tell you're writing."

"Are you mad?"

"Not at all. If you're in the groove, I'll go shopping on my way home."

He groans. "More shopping without me?"

"Groceries, you big baby."

"You're wasting valuable alone time with me to _grocery_ shop? I told you we can get the delivery service. It's so worth it."

"I'm yours all weekend," she huffs, packing her laptop into her bag. She does actually have a few things she needs to get done at home. But she's not entirely lying. "Plus, it's just cravings, Castle."

"Ooh, what now?"

She rolls her eyes. "Deviled eggs."

He laughs, a little harder than she'd like, but it's one more on a long list of things she's been desperate to put in her mouth. (She said that to him the last time and he cracked up then too, wriggling his eyebrows and making lewd comments. Of course, she wound up with something else in her mouth, and _that_ shut him up.)

Castle grunts, and she wonders if he's thinking about that as well. "Alright, Kate. I'm in the middle of this scene and you're thoroughly distracting. Go. Grocery shop. Oh, get me that chocolate marshmallow cereal."

"And ruin all that hard work at the gym?"

"Yes, exactly. Ruin me, Kate Beckett. Rui-"

She hangs up on him, shaking her head, and pulls the strap of her briefcase over her shoulder. Castle bought it for her when she got the job again, and it's more beautiful than the last one. She rubs her fingers over her engraved initials, loving him all the more for the _KB_ stamped there.

And then she calls him back. He answers after a moment, a little disgruntled, "What?"

She grins, her hand on the door knob, but she pauses in the privacy of her office. "I'm in love with you. I just wanted you to know, again, all over again."

He rumbles like a jungle cat and she can imagine his face creasing with his smile. "Love you back, Beckett." And then a little hum, and she can sense how his attention focuses on her again. "Kate. You know I am too. In love with you."

"I know." She smiles and opens her office door, sliding out before anyone can look her way. She strides for elevator, waving off LT as he tries to approach. No more work. She's done.

"Hey," he says suddenly. "I just checked the time. Wow. You're so early."

She laughs, and she hangs up on him again.

 **x**

"Pizza," she whines in his ear. She's leaning over the couch to nuzzle him. "Please. Feed me."

He tries not to squirm, glancing behind him at the bags she deposited on the kitchen counter. "I can't believe you're begging me for pizza when you bought all that healthy stuff." He has to juggle the laptop and put it to one side. "Folic acid, remember?"

She wrinkles her nose, draws her arms around his neck. "I was trying to be good. But I'm craving cheese and sausage."

"I can give you sausage-"

She smacks him for that, and he laughs, catching her by the wrist and tugging her down. Kate rolls gracefully over the couch and drops into his lap, grinning up at him, wriggling her ass strategically. He leans forward to put the laptop on the coffee table, which has the added benefit of crushing her breasts against his chest.

She wriggles harder, making him jerk. "Hey, now. Quit that."

"But you were going to order in anyway," she says. "So why quit it?"

"I was?"

"My pizza, you asshole."

He laughs, drops a hand to her stomach. "Shh, not where the unborn can hear."

"Can the unborn hear yet? When does it get ears?"

"She-"

" _He_ -"

"-can't hear yet, no. I think that's like 20 weeks or so. I can't remember. _Someone_ made me delete the app."

She grins, shifting partially off him and angling her head to the arm of the couch. "I hated that app. You're not allowed to put it back. Besides, just google it."

"I have been. I will. Pizza?"

"Yes!" She sits up suddenly, hooking her arms around his neck. She's entirely frisky tonight, and he has no idea why. But he likes it. "Sausage and extra cheese. And-"

"Olives?" he hopes.

Her mouth tilts crookedly, but she nods. "Alright. Black olives. We'll give it a whirl."

"Chicken?"

"Gross. I haven't had morning sickness yet but you're going to make me _hurl_ -"

"Why, rhyming. How about half and half-"

"How about _two_ pizzas," she says quickly, kicking a foot up and turning to straddle his lap. Suddenly he's stunned speechless and her lips are caressing his jaw and finding his mouth. "Ri-ick. Two?"

"I..."

"I think that's a yes. Your unborn will be so pleased to have an entire pizza to himself."

He grunts, goes for that kiss she's withholding, and she mucks it up by laughing at him.

But he doesn't care. Feels good to kiss her and hold her on his lap and know they've more than started their lives - they're living.

 **x**

He brings leftover pizza back to bed for breakfast that morning, cold pizza the way she likes it. She smiles at him and curls up at his side, eats off his plate with her fingers. Licks them because teasing him is so much fun.

"You answered the phone," he says.

She swallows and glances at him. She can't tell if he's accusing.

He frowns. "Kate. Work is-"

"Sorry-"

"No, listen before you jump to conclusions?"

She stiffens, but she tries to smooth down her instinctive self-defense. "Alright."

He nods. "Work is important. Work is what brought us to each other. So if - so _when_ the precinct calls, you take it. But don't hide it from me. That makes it feel like you're cheating on me somehow."

She sits up, more than a little surprised.

"I've been having a lot of sessions with Dr Burke lately," he admits. Shrugs. "Nightmares."

"Oh."

"We went into other things. He says you - you've indicated that you think I'm jealous of the Twelfth. For having your time after all of this. But I'm not, Kate."

"Oh-kay." She's blind-sided by serious conversation at eight in the morning on a Sunday.

He nods, as if relieved to have that out there.

She has wondered, he's right. "I want to be true to you," she finally says. She's not sure she can do sober reflection this early, but she'll try. "I don't want you to think I'm - not in this, or that you're not the _most_ important thing."

"And the unborn."

She scowls. "Of course. But what I mean is - if my behavior ever, if you start to question it, if it comes up and you think I ought to be... I don't know, doing more. Being more. I'm-"

"I don't want _more_ ," he sighs. "Just you."

"That's really pretty, but it's not functional in reality, Rick. We fight, we drive each other crazy. We get our feelings hurt and make snide comments because we know just where to cut. I want to be sure that my job, and my dedication to that job, doesn't become-"

"Kate, seriously. The idea of intentionally wounding you is so abhorrent right now, after everything, that-"

She shakes her head, but she knows that feeling too. So much of their tension has been made obsolete by almost-dying. "But that fades," she says quietly. "It goes away, the immediacy of knowing it was almost over. Believe me, I know."

His lips flatten, unhappy. "Not for me."

"Maybe not yet." And what does it say that the horror of finding him shot on the kitchen doesn't stick with her like it used to? "Maybe not. But I know myself. And I don't want it to be true, but it is. I'm - the Twelfth is family too, and I-"

"That's not what it's about," he says, capturing her fingers, curling his around hers. "Or - that _is_ what it's about. Because I don't feel like that, Kate. If you're late at the precinct, then you're late. So long as you co-parent, so long as you're not hopping a plane for California, we're gonna be fine." He laughs, as if it's a joke, but it's really not a joke.

She swallows. "Your standards are too low, Rick."

His face flushes.

"My threshold for being a good mother is not leaving for California?" She shakes her head. "That's not good enough. And that - that is what I think Burke wanted us to talk about, get out there, because it's not okay that you'll wind up doing everything for this kid. I want to do things, I want to be Mom and go to the zoo and the Park and come home in time for _fun_ before dinner and bath and bed. You know? And you're very easy going and sweet, you really are, but it won't work. That doesn't work. For me."

Kate leans in and kisses him, tastes garlic and cheese. He looks bewildered, maybe a little upended.

"Of course it's going to be different from last time," she tells him. "But Rick, it's going to be so much _more_ than that, you'll never get over it."

 **x**

"No, stop," she moans. "I like this one best. _No._ " She laughs as he snatches away the remote, digging an elbow into her ribs.

He can't help grinning even as he returns to the menu screen and loudly scoffs her binge-watching choices. "There is no way I'm watching another episode of _Nebula 9_. Life is too short."

"Just for that, I'm putting _Max_ at the top of my list. We can call him Captain."

"You wouldn't," he gasps.

"I so would. My list, my names." She's laughing as she says it, but it's a giving up kind of giggle, and her head lays on his bicep again. "Nothing violent, Castle. Something funny."

He points the remote at his television and stops _Game of Thrones_ , choosing something else. _Scrubs_ will work well enough. He'll change it if she complains; he doesn't care that much. He mostly just likes the two of them sprawled on the couch watching television together.

Her apartment is much cozier than the loft. He can see the open door of their bedroom from here, and if he turns his head he can see through to the kitchen and office. The baby's room has been dry-walled and the faux brick plaster added to one wall so it won't ruin the apartment's lines, but they still haven't painted. Maybe next weekend; this is too good to spoil.

"Mm, never did get to see this show," she murmurs. "You disappeared on me."

He freezes.

"Shit, sorry," she gapes, looking horrified as she lifts her head. She smooths two fingers across his forehead. "Don't look like that. I - that's so far in the past, Rick. I only meant we planned to do it after the honeymoon that summer and it all - this is so different now. I didn't even think before I spoke."

"It's okay. I'd forgotten. It surprised me." He pulls her back down to lie with him, trying to arrange her in front so he can hide his face in her hair. She goes willingly, and he wraps an arm around her, swallowing hard. There's a long moment of silence as he mindlessly watches television.

She kisses his bicep. "How come I'm always the little spoon?" she says, tugging on his arm.

"Fine then," he says, feeling himself rally. "Switch with me. You're big spoon for the rest of the weekend."

She laughs, but wriggles back, makes him climb over her. He settles his head low on the couch, but her arm slides under his neck like he always does to her. She drapes at his back, and strangely enough, he swears he can feel the baby.

Just a slight thickness, and probably only wishful thinking, but it's pretty wonderful.

She nips his ear and kisses his neck. "Even when you're the little spoon, you're still big."

He laughs, rubs his hand up and down her arm. "Thanks, I think."

She squeezes, finds a spot for her head against his neck and jaw, settling in to watch from behind him. It's weird, he'll admit it, but he does find himself growing used to it. He could probably fall asleep like this.

And maybe there'd be no nightmares.

"Okay, I'm done," she huffs. "Switch with me. I need you to rub that spot."

He laughs, glancing up at her face above him. "See? The big spoon has responsibilities. The little spoon gets to reap all the benefits."

"Fine, fine, you're big spoon until after my massage. Now move."

He obediently switches places with her, propping himself on one elbow to dig his thumb into the spot beside her shoulder blade. She grunts and her head drops against the couch cushion. He grinds a knuckle over the knot in her muscle and she hisses a long breath.

"So good. Damn."

He smiles, his spirits bouncing back. She does so much for his attitude, keeps him buoyed, keeps his mind off all the alternate endings to their story. She's very much a _here and now_ kind of woman, unwilling to contemplate what might have happened in favor of meeting the obligations of today.

And she's been through this before. The same emotions, same feeling of euphoria mixed with abject grief. She did it alone last time, which he's still of two minds about - the early recovery weeks were so painful, so frustrating, that he can't imagine a fledgling relationship surviving intact, but to think of her with no one, to imagine her gritting her teeth and pushing herself to her own detriment...

"We should've named him Rowdy."

"What?" he laughs, completely bewildered. "Oh, the _dog_. Yes, like the stuffed dog on _Scrubs_? That's somewhat demeaning, Beckett."

And of course, just mentioning 'dog' brings Charlie struggling to his feet and coming over to them from his spot near the door. He whips his tail back and forth and licks Kate's face, and she giggles, fending him off.

"Sorry, Charlie," she grins, patting his back and scratching between his ears. "Maybe we should get you a buddy. When the baby comes. Don't want you to be lonely."

"Nah, he won't be lonely. He'll be happy to have a baby to look out for."

"This could be totally disastrous," she laughs, squirming now to get his attention. He digs his thumb into her muscle and she grunts, going boneless once more. "You have magic hands, Rick Castle. Number five hundred and thirty-six."

"Number what?" he smiles, kneading her muscles.

"To love you."

He falls silent, falls still, stunned somehow by the casual declaration of love. Five hundred and thirty-six. Like she has a running list, and the total is so great-

"You stopped, don't stop," she whines, twitching her shoulders.

He pushes Chaplin away from her face and resumes his massage, but he's a little tongue-tied.

They have such an intricate and sometimes painful past. She hid from him for so long, and he ditched her on their wedding day. They've faced serial killers and conspiracies, and they almost never came back from that. But.

She reminds him of the joy in _now_. She's the one making little stick-men on the beach of their recovery, blazing a trail towards their tomorrow. She gives him the inspiration to imagine their future, to _dream_ rather than nightmare.

"Stop thinking so hard," she mutters, tugging his ear for his attention. Her eyes are dark, sluggish. Maybe she has no idea what turmoil he was just in, maybe she does. She flicks her finger over his lips. "Do my other shoulder."

She wriggles her shoulder up and down as if to emphasize her point, and he immediately takes up his job once more, kneading her back in the places where it hurts.

This is their life now, tangled on the couch on a Sunday with the Twelfth a gnat of interruption from time to time and his own book's deadline being put off yet again while they argue over television and baby names. This is what they've struggled to rebuild, to come back to, and even if they never find their way into the loft, if this is their only child, if she stays the busy captain and rushes home just after dinner is served, if he moves away from Nikki Heat - it's okay.

It's more than okay.

It's a miracle.

 **x**


	7. Star Bright

**Juice Cups & Coffee Mugs**

 **x**

 **VII. Star Bright**

 **x**

Kate wakes early, as she usually does these days, to heartburn so fierce it takes her breath. She lies there hoping it will fade, but of course it never does.

Instead, she untangles herself from sheets and a possessive arm, turns off her alarm so it won't wake. She brushes a hand through his hair on her way to the bathroom, and Chaplin gets up from the floor at Castle's side, follows her in.

She takes shallow breaths as she goes to the bathroom, washes her hands and avoids looking in the mirror. People at work have noticed, have started touching her and asking when she's due, and even though January seems like eons from now, her coworkers all blink and act so surprised. _So soon?_

It's not that soon.

Well.

They're coming up on a year now. It makes her palms tingle and her scalp tighten, like someone is in the room with her.

Instead she moves through the bedroom, slides a hand down Castle's shin and straightens the sheet over his foot. He doesn't even twitch. The dog watches from the bedroom doorway, waiting on her, and it takes only a few seconds to throw on running shorts and a sports bra, one of Castle's old t-shirts.

Chaplin follows her placidly into the living room and from there to the kitchen. She goes for expediency and takes the bread straight from the bag, swallowing large chunks to ease the heartburn. A full glass of milk, both while she stands at the counter with her feet bare, toes curling to pop the knuckles.

Chaplin woofs at her, a soft noise in his chest, hurrying her up. She lifts a foot and scratches the top of his head; he basically rolls his eyes at her. He's settled into middle-aged dog fairly quickly, sleeping away the day and the night as well, but he's like her - he enjoys their mornings.

"Alright. Get your leash."

He springs forward, trots around the island and into the living room. She watches a moment to be sure his teeth pick up the leather and not the laptop cord, and then she shifts towards the laundry basket still resting on the kitchen table. Two socks that don't match are all she can find; she pulls them on quickly and steps into her running shoes that she kicked under the table sometime the other day.

Chaplin is waiting at the door, tail wagging so hard his whole back end shakes.

She chuckles, stoops over to catch the leash.

The heartburn flares and she winces, goes down on her knees so she can keep her head above her heart. Only part she's not entirely loved so far. Her insides definitely feel shifted around, displaced for the unborn.

Worth it. So worth it. Just not comfortable. Makes for sleeplessness and gritty eyes, morning runs and afternoon exhaustion. But she'll figure it out. Or simply live with it.

Kate attaches the leash to the dog's harness and stands once more, takes the key from the side table and tucks it into the little pocket in her shorts. When she opens the door, Chaplin is already straining at the leash to get moving.

"We're going," she chuckles. "Chill out down the stairs."

Kate presses her free hand into the scar at her sternum, hissing as the heartburn shifts, cramps painfully. It's like her lungs are on fire.

And the scars are tight this morning.

 **x**

A nightmare bitch-slaps him in the dead of sleep, and Castle finds himself jerking upright in bed on a harsh cry, panic scaling his guts.

He breathes.

Already it's sinking back into the mire, disappearing faster than he can gather it.

Castle doesn't know what it was that woke him, the shape of that horror, only that he's staring dumbly at the closed wooden blinds, the soft fall of sheer curtain like a shadow.

Bed is empty. He shifts, trying to resign himself to the morning, and his eyes catch the clock.

Six-thirty? Too early for this. Apartment is quiet and this place is small enough that he'd hear her or the dog if they were still here. She must have gone for a run again. Or she'd have come when he woke like that.

He scrubs both hands down his face and groans, pushes his feet out of bed. He goes to the bathroom, washes his hands, looks at his face in the mirror. Skin sagging, circles under his eyes. Neither of them are getting much sleep these days. The unborn is keeping her restless at night, and she often spends hours on the couch, reading while he sleeps only to have him wake with the same awful dreams.

All of the sudden, he doesn't want to be here. Alone. The sun just beginning to break. _Alone._

Castle grabs his robe from the end of the bed and shrugs it on, shoves his feet in flip flops because he can't find his slippers (Chaplin), and he heads out into the living room.

When it too echoes with silence, he finds himself drawn to the front door, scraping his keys from the kitchen counter. He leaves without thinking, and somewhere behind his eyes are the images from his nightmare that aren't imagination at all but memory.

He has memories of that day at the loft that he can't shake. Can't think himself free of, can't talk out. Sometimes seeing Dr Burke helps, sometimes it makes it worse. This week has been worse. Burke says he's afraid he can't protect his family. Maybe so. He rocks on the balls of his feet in the elevator and he lets himself admit, for once, what it is he's doing.

He's going to find her. He just needs to see her. Alive. He needs to put his hands on her. He knows she's alive, of course he does, and his heart feels it too. But his hands, his hands remember how cold her fingers were as they tried to hang on to each other, how the blood was hot under his back but her fingers were so cold. Already dying.

He shivers as the elevator door opens, and he hurries off.

He can't possibly hope to find her. She has a couple different running paths this early in the morning, plus she likes to wander in Central Park with the dog if she can run that far.

He swallows roughly and pushes open the front door, stands on the sidewalk looking up and down. The sun has made a long white path down the street, blinding.

If he could just take her hand, her warm hand - well, her fingers are always rather cool, but after a run, she's nice and heated, sweat down her back and at her nape where her hair will curl from the pony tail.

A dog barks, anxiously, and it brings his head around.

"Kate?" he blurts out, bewildered by the hunched form slumped back against the building. "Kate." He jogs forward, touching a hand to the dog's head to ease him before he can reach his wife.

At the white wash of her face and the wild jerk of her body, he grinds to a halt, doesn't touch her.

Panic attack.

He blows out a fast breath and leans back against the building's facade beside her. She flinches, one fist gripping the dog's leash, a tight noise in her throat that she tries to smother.

"Kate," he says quietly. "Breathe. In and out. In and out-"

"Rick," she gasps. Her free hand clenches and releases, and he takes that hand, twines their fingers together to help her keep the beat.

She starts shaking now, violently, but he can't yet make any sudden moves. He murmurs her name, reminds her to breathe, counting when it becomes absolutely necessary. She finally takes gulping breaths, hissing out again, and she tilts her head back against the concrete.

"There we go," he sighs, relief trickling through him. "That's it. You got this."

She's shaking all over now, her knees drawn up to her chest, sweat making dark stains on her loose t-shirt. Her eyes are open, staring at the sky, and he remembers what she told him back in the Hamptons about her need to see sky, how free the blue is, how limitless. Uncaged.

After a long time, she finally slumps into his side, sucking in hard breaths. She's still twitching but not shaking quite as badly. He winds his arm around her shoulders and holds her against him, vaguely impressed by the lack of attention they've garnered.

Only in New York.

"You're in your robe," she croaks. She sounds like she's been screaming, her voice raw, but it's only the wash of adrenaline. "You're wearing your robe."

He smiles grimly, kisses her forehead. "I am."

"Why'd you come outside in your robe?"

"Needed to get my hands on you," he explains roughly. "Maybe a little premonition. A long line of psychics in my family."

"You said charlatans and-"

"Hush, Beckett. I'm being romantic."

A death rattle that might be a laugh. "Are you?"

He squeezes her shoulders. "I was just about to ask if panic attack sex was on the agenda. It's kinda like make-up sex. Really hot."

She laughs then, though weakly. She feels limp and gangly at his side, under his arm, and he tries to nudge her to stand. Propping her up. Leverage and crutch.

Kate finally gets to her feet. Their hands are still laced together, his left and her left, making it awkward with Chaplin winding between their legs. But he takes a moment to embrace her, hold her up for a little while, and she takes it.

And then she touches her tongue to his throat and his skin tightens, his body seeming to expand to encompass the whole world.

"I think it probably is on the agenda," she murmurs. "After all, seems to serve us well."

 **x**

She calls in for the day. Sick, and no one questions it. Spend that sickness in bed together. She reminds him she's alive, and warm, and he reminds her that a panic attack isn't weakness.

They kiss, and his fingers caress her stomach, and she hates it but she loves it too.

No one cares she's not at the Twelfth today, this one day, but there's a certain guilt that makes their sex seem illicit and frantic, and she tells herself it's not because she thinks they're doomed.

They're not.

That's not the ending to their story.

 **x**


	8. I May

**Juice Cups & Coffee Mugs**

 **x**

 **VIII. I May**

 **x**

"Lanie has the guest list," Kate says, shrugging.

He watches her stick the toothbrush back in her mouth like it's not a thing, no biggie, and he shakes his head and walks out of the bathroom.

Lanie has a guest list already. He's cut out of it, just like that.

He grunts when her quick hand grabs the back of his pajama pants. She tugs hard, her arm comes around his torso with the toothbrush in her hand. "Don't pout, Castle. It's not attractive." A minty-fresh kiss on his neck, a light lick of his skin. He can feel the unborn at the small of his back where her stomach presses. "Besides. You're coming to the precinct's baby shower."

"I know." He wraps his fingers around her wrist, holds her hand with its lathered toothbrush away from his shirt. "You know I like to touch things."

"And I also know you're having trouble letting me out of your sight," she says, sternly. A frown creasing her forehead.

He shrugs, releases her as if to prove he can, and she heads back to the bathroom to finish up, spit. He makes his way to the bed once more, lumbers in, just the bed sheet covering him. He lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling.

Finally it comes to him. "I want to open gifts with you and imagine the unborn in the cute little outfit or how we'll wrap him in those-"

"You said him!" Kate comes bounding into the bedroom, excitement pink in her cheeks. "You said _him_. I heard it."

"I was just - it's default," he grumbles. "Instead of saying him or her all the time. Just tired of being politically correct."

"No, not-uh," she says, kneeling on the bed with him. "You've _been_ saying both. He or she. But this time-"

"It's still a secret," he mutters, tugging on the hem of her t-shirt. He snakes a hand underneath before she can bat him away, splays his fingers across her stomach. "Still a mystery."

Her eyes grow heavy-lidded. She sinks a fist into the mattress to lean towards him, and he rolls onto his side to caress the curve. Their baby. Her lashes dip. "A mystery."

"We'll solve it eventually," he murmurs, as if in consolation.

Her smile is heavenly, and she slowly sinks down, drawing her knees up. He wraps an arm around her, their legs tangling, and he gives her a kiss without strings attached.

She's half asleep before he pulls back.

He traces a thumb around the shell of her ear. "I like being with you when you discover new things about our baby."

Her mouth parts as if to reply, her tongue to the back of her teeth. But she can't seem to get out the words. Her lids slide shut.

She's asleep.

 **x**

He gets a text message halfway into a really intriguing scene with Jameson Rook and an IED, embedded reporter meets certain death (maybe), and he ignores it for half a heartbeat to finish the paragraph.

Which becomes finishing the scene.

Which becomes starting the next so he doesn't forget where he's left it, emotionally, and then accidentally writing the actual scene, word-for-word, instead of typing a quick outline for what happens, and he's elbow deep in Rook's panic and troop movements and a dusty hot landscape when his phone rings.

Everything breaks. The zone. His rhythm. The groove.

Rick curses and scrapes a hand down his face, his eyes tracking the previous words on the screen, but it won't come back that easily. He had it and now he doesn't, and he should answer the phone if it's already gone.

"Castle," he rasps.

"Oh, no, you were writing."

He winces at the way _she_ sounds wincing. "Yeah." What can he say, _it's okay?_. It's not exactly okay; it's gone. And then Castle fully comes to awareness, and his pulse speeds up. "But you called. Are you okay?"

"No, no, I'm fine," she says instantly, soothing. "I texted you a few times. You didn't answer. But you were writing."

Oh. Oh, he didn't answer. "I was writing," he says apologetically. "I meant to check. I should have looked at the alert." Just a week ago they were joking about how he doesn't like her out of his sight, and now she's doing the same. "Are we trading back and forth? I always-"

"No, I know better," she sighs. "It gets away from you. I know better."

"But that doesn't mean we both don't still need it," he reminds her softly.

She growls. He knows she's fed up with the emotional entanglements of trauma, and having a baby on the way has only given those irrational fears a bigger petrie dish. "I'm tired of needing it," she mutters. "But I really just wanted to tell you - Lanie felt bad, sort of, about not including you. She remade the guest list and you're on it."

"Oh." Now he feels like a heel. Completely. "She didn't have to-"

"Everyone here," she interrupts, " from our precinct family. Like the Ryans'. She told me to apologize, and she'll give me her gift in private."

"Oh, in _private_ ," he grins, rousing from the desk chair. "Does that mean it's spicy?"

"I have no idea," she laughs. She sounds warm and happy, pleased. Maybe even pleased with him.

"What are you doing for lunch?" he says quickly. "I miss you."

"Mm, I don't know that I'm getting a lunch break. Meetings until-"

"Unacceptable."

"Castle." _You do not dictate._

He's not. "I only meant I'm bringing you lunch. When is your meeting."

"It's an IT thing, so I guess you could actually sit in. Well. Hang on. Bring lunch for everyone, do you mind? Do you have time? It starts in an hour. BBQ and salads, or that pizza from Celeste's, oh my God-"

He chuckles as she food spirals - she must be starving - but he's already reaching for his wallet, his keys. "I can do that, I'll get the expensive pizzas. How many?"

"There are about twenty-five working in IT and Forensic Computers. Can you-"

"I got it, babe."

Departmental meeting for lunch. He's actually looking forward to it.

 **x**

 _rush-rush rush-rush_

Rick turns round eyes to her, as if he's never done this before, and she stop chewing on her lip to grin at him. "Yeah," she answers inanely, a question no one asked.

The ultrasound tech presses the wand into Kate's stomach. "Strong heartbeat." Her smile is quick but genuine. It can't compare with the one Kate feels stretching across her face just like her skin has been stretching over the unborn. "Everything looks good, but I'm not the doctor. She'll take a look, give you the sex."

"Oh, no," Castle insists. "We want to be surprised. Mystery."

"No," Kate blurts out. "I want to know." She shoots Rick an apologetic look. "I know we said. I know we did. I just..."

He grins like a little boy. "Me too. I can't bear it. I want to know so badly. Okay, let's find out. Let's do it."

The tech chuckles, recording the ultrasound as she moves the wand. Kate's doctor is running behind; it's not a big deal. They'll be able to save it on a flash drive this way. Castle had one in his wallet, a thin key-shaped thing he keeps his in-progress work on in case something happens to his laptop. He let the tech erase it so she could copy the whole thing to the flash drive.

They're going to find out.

"Oh, wait, can you see - I mean, I've heard sometimes the baby's legs are crossed," Castle says quickly, shifting on his feet beside her.

 _rush-rush rush-rush_

Kate grins so widely it's hurting her face, and the ultrasound technician reassures them that she can in fact tell. She's seen enough, done enough of these with the doctor that she can tell. She won't; it's above her pay grade; she'll leave it to the doctor. But.

Castle fidgets, his excitement palpable. Kate is both horny and nervous (horny always, nervous just today), but she grabs for his hand again and squeezes, despite the way clinging to him makes her feel worse on both fronts.

"How's the scar tissue?" Castle asks.

"Oh, come on," she mutters. "Shut up, Castle."

He huffs, but he keeps his eyes on the tech, nodding to the scar high at her stomach that has begun to widen. The tech shakes her head. "Ultrasound should help, but if you're worried, I'd go in for the ultrasound therapy. Like this - it's just not enough."

Castle shoots Kate a _see I told you_ look that she ignores. "I don't care. What do I care? I'm not bouncing more sound waves around in there right now."

"It's perfectly safe," the tech says quickly. "I promise."

"See? She promises-"

"Castle," she insists, lifting a finger at him. "My body. My scars."

" _Our_ baby," he mutters. He rolls his eyes, which is so her thing, and the tech glances back and forth between them.

"Scar tissue needs to stay elastic, that's all." The woman hesitates, then finishes with, "If you massage around the area, it will help. Vitamin E, cocoa butter. It's not different from what I'd be telling any other pregnant woman worried about stretch marks."

"I don't care," she says, waving Castle off the subject. He drops it, shrugs his shoulders.

 _rush-rush rush-rush_

The tech smiles with their smiling, moves the wand away, taps a button on the machine. And then their baby's heartbeat cuts off, gone just like that, though Kate can almost feel it in her own blood anyway, feel it quick and light and strong inside her.

Castle wraps his other hand around hers, like it's just too much.

Oh, it really is too much. It's too much. She never thought she'd make it here. Never.

The tech makes a couple of notations on her screen, her head bowed over the images she's recorded, marking things for the doctor, oblivious to the miracle this is.

 _boy-or-girl boy-or-girl_

The question itself beats inside her, and Kate grips Castle's hand a little harder. The tech wipes off her stomach, folds the blanket up again. "You can get dressed." And then the ultrasound tech leaves and they're alone.

"The suspense is killing me," Castle whispers.

She laughs, tugs hard on his hand. "Get down here." She's reclining on the raised head of the bed, supposed to be moving to get her clothes, but instead she forces a kiss on him, tongue and rasping teeth, his lip instead of her own.

He groans and crushes her hand to his chest. Breaks away to stare down at her. "Clothes. I mean. You're dressed but your pants-"

"Get my pants, Castle."

His lips twitch and he jumps up, snags her clothes from the counter. She spins her legs around and he helps her struggle into her pants; she stands and rolls the elastic waist over the unborn.

Castle pats her stomach, grinning again. She can still that heartbeat in her head, feel it thrumming inside her as she straightens her silk shell. Her suit jacket is in Castle's hands, waiting.

The door opens.

The doctor is waving a printed image, an eyebrow raised. "So, she told me you want to know the sex of your baby? I thought we were going to be surprised?"

"We've had enough mystery to last a lifetime," Kate laughs, though it feels a little too true to be so amusing.

Castle's hand grips hers again, their fingers lacing. He still has her jacket.

"Well, if you really do." The doctor holds up the printout, a row of three images, a black and grey confusion.

"Oh, there's the head," Kate cries, reaching for it. The first image; she knows the head distinctly.

"And a foot," Castle chuckles. "Kicking."

"And," the doctor says, coming in closer and touching her finger to the blur of the third image. "From the bottom, or well, your top, Kate. Legs spread wide."

Kate gasps, already seeing it. Castle groans.

"It's a boy."

 **x**


	9. I Wish Tonight

**Juice Cups and Coffee Mugs**

* * *

 **IX. I Wish Tonight**

 **x**

Castle is awake instantly, disoriented, uncomfortable, his neck spasming with pain.

"Did you fall asleep?"

He cracks an eyelid, peers around. He's on the wide, deep couch in their living room, slumped over in an embarrassingly telling manner, his head tilted back and a crick in his neck and shoulder. "Eh-sh-yeah-"

She laughs softly, sinks down onto his lap before he can gather himself together. He grunts and sits up, a hand clasping her knee to keep from accidentally dumping her to the floor. He clears his throat, licks his dried out lips, rubs his free hand down his face.

"I took Chaplin outside," she murmurs, a kiss to his forehead. "You were really out."

"Haven't slept well lately."

"I noticed," she says, stroking the nape of his neck. "Chaplin was excited to see me."

"Yeah, that's not good," he admits. "Sorry, I think that was something like six hours." He shifts on the couch and sees the dog nosing around the kitchen, searching for his food. "Aw, Chap, buddy. My fault. I haven't even put dinner out. Or for you, Kate."

"Let's go out." Her fingers are rhythmic on his nape. "It's only eight."

"It's already eight? Did your meeting go long?"

She groans and drops her forehead against his cheek. "I'm up against a wall at every turn. It's close to impossible to get people to change their ways, Castle. They aren't even listening to me. They immediately start thinking of a defense, a way to excuse their behavior."

"That's bureaucracy for ya," he mutters, not quite with it yet. Still struggling. He was deeply asleep when she woke him. "What time did you get home?"

"Seven," she says softly, kissing his jaw. Her fingers at his nape are so cool and soothing. His eyes are growing heavy again. "Never mind, babe. We'll eat in. I'll make something. I remember seeing those frozen raviolis Alexis made."

"Yeah, still in the freezer," he answers. "Do you mind not going out?"

"Not at all." She smiles _kindly_ and he realizes he must look rough.

He rubs a fist in his eye and drops it again, squeezing her knee. "At least I'll have practice at the sleepless nights."

She shakes her head, kisses the corner of his mouth. "I'm afraid it doesn't really work that way. But good try. Dinner tonight, you can have a little wine, and we'll go to bed early."

"I don't need to drink-"

"It'll help," she says, shifting off his lap to stand. "No arguments, Rick."

 **x**

They choose the paint color together, but it's just shades of grey. One this way, one that, but he has an opinion about everything, and they finally settle on something dove-like and soft. As they paint the newly finished dry wall, she has an idea.

"Stripes. Horizontal. Fat stripes. Won't that be cool?"

"Did you just say cool?"

She wrinkles her nose at him, moves to stand by the open windows, takes a deeper breath of the fresh air. "Come on. Stripes."

"We've already done one whole wall."

"No, not the whole room, Castle. Seriously."

He looks blank.

"Just one wall," she points out. "The crib wall. Or well, no I guess we're putting the changing table there."

"Oh. One wall." He glances to the wall at his back, shrugs. "Grey? Or were you thinking turquoise to match those sheets."

Kate bites her bottom lip, grins a little around it. "Um. You'd let me?"

"Let you?" he scoffs.

She bounces on her toes, stalks across the close room to him. Throws her arms around his neck and forces him into a kiss. "Thank you, thank you."

"Don't thank me. You're doing all the heavy lifting," he says, and his hands frame her stomach. Obvious now, to anyone, and everyone, and she doesn't mind him touching like she did before. She's gotten used to it. It's all the rest of the world she doesn't want touching.

"I'm not that heavy," she preens against his kiss. Kisses him again because he smells like paint and God help her, she really loves the smell of paint right now.

"Back to the window," he growls.

She huffs, but she slowly breaks away from him, slinks back to the window to keep out of the paint fumes. He eyes the opposite wall and tilts his head.

"How do you propose we do this?"

"Go back to the paint store, find a turquoise that won't damage your eyeballs," she says, still smiling. He picks up the roller and goes back to painting the interior wall, avoiding the detail work of the door frame which she's supposed to be doing in incremental shifts.

"Painter's tape," he says finally. "And a damn long ruler."

"Seamstress tape," she says. "The flexible kind? It's long."

"But flexible. How fat a stripe? We need to measure the whole wall-"

"We have those measurements from the guy who did the dry wall for us."

"Oh, yes. You're right. Okay. This might be do-able, but are you sure you wouldn't rather get professionals in here to do this?"

"I want us to do it." _You to do it_ , she knows she's really saying. "I want to rock him to sleep in the room we made for him."

His head darts around to look at her, and she gives him that moment, the connection of their gazes, how irrefutable it all is. What they've accomplished together, what they're creating. The story they're telling.

"Turquoise stripes it is," he says, humming as he resumes painting.

She picks up her small brush and moves back to the door frame to do the fine work, angling her body to keep from smearing the unborn into the paint.

"Timing you," he says. Until she needs a break by the window again.

"I know you are." She depends on it.

She depends on him.

 **x**

"What's wrong?" he says in the darkness. He likes her angled close like this, the pregnancy pillow on the floor instead of between them. But he's wary of falling asleep. His nightmares have been brutal, this time including a pregnant Kate as she drops, shot to hell, on the loft floor.

The real Kate shifts beside him, huffs. "I'm starving."

He laughs. "Come on. I'll make you something." He doesn't stop to let her demure, simply pats the knee thrown over his hips and nudges it down, lifting upright.

She moves at that, gets out of bed at her side. She's wearing that pink oversized jersey, her hair caught up at her nape, messy. She looks nothing like the captain of a precinct, especially not with the unborn leading the way.

He drags on his robe; the air conditioning is on high these days despite the nights being so much cooler. She's always overheating, sweating at the least provocation.

Her fingers snag his and they traipse the short distance across the living room and to the kitchen. Hand in hand. She raps the table carelessly, bumps into a kitchen chair in the dim light coming through the windows. He glances back and she waves him off; her balance has been tricky since the unborn really started growing out.

For his part, he taps the ultrasounds on the fridge, the sheaf of them from their last appointment. Definitely a boy, though the image they display on top in the chip-clip magnet is the one of the unborn sucking his thumb.

Ridiculous kid.

He's grinning and she gives him a sideways look, shaking her head.

"Sit," he offers, but she doesn't, follows him all the way into the kitchen. "What're you in the mood for?" he says, opening the pantry to look.

"Surprise me."

"One of those nights, huh?" Last time she said that he pushed her into the shower with him, and she was pretty surprised. Twice, she said, but he counts that first one, she doesn't, and so he'll go with three. She says the unborn and the hormones compound the issue, as if that means it doesn't count. It totally counts, even with hormones helping things along.

Kate tugs his ear. "I know what you're thinking, you lecher."

He laughs, throwing a glance over his shoulder at her. She dimples, and she doesn't really have dimples, but something about a pregnant Beckett makes her more Kate all the time. More clever, maybe.

"Too tired, but thanks for offering," she says, blowing him a kiss as she settles on the bar stool. He chuckles at that too; he's more exhausted than she is. He can admit it.

He gathers ingredients without thinking, collecting things, finding a pan, turning on the burner. "Did you see what got delivered?"

"Yeah," she brightens. "From my dad. He's going a little crazy."

"He's excited. In his way." He opens the fridge, scans the contents. "It was cute though. I need to put up the crib."

"We have time."

He shoots her a dark look, withdrawing ingredients from the low shelf. "Not really."

She snorts, but she's making slow circles over the unborn, runes on her belly to ward off spirits. Or maybe just soothing a roving kick. She's watching him but she's not watching him, that inward listening, and he begins lining things up on the counter by the stovetop.

"I want to read your book," she says, out of the blue.

"I have many."

She laughs, distinct, surprised. "No, the baby book you got. I've read all of your many best sellers, Rick Castle. Don't you worry."

"Working on this one now," he offers, tentatively. She hasn't asked to read it and he doesn't know what that means, but the second he hesitates, she's straightening her spine and avidly watching him. "Alright, okay. You'll critique it?"

"I'm not a critic," she warns, drawing back.

"But you'll tell me if it rings true? You know Jameson Rook too. About as well as I do."

She shakes her head. "This is Rook before Nikki. What do I know?"

He finds that makes him sad. "But you know me." He knows that doesn't make sense. "You know the kind of person I was before I met you."

"You say that, Rick, like you weren't this person."

He gives a helpless shrug, working on her midnight snack - four a.m. snack. "But the crazy person sex and the book parties and signing fans' chests-"

"Oh, right. Like that was really you," she scoffs. "All persona, if a little desperate."

"Wow."

"What?" Acting innocent. But he doesn't care at all about the dig regarding his desperation.

He cares about how easily she dismisses it all. He grins. "We've come a long way, baby."

She flicks her fingers at him as if it's nothing, but he's actually impressed with them. The work they've done to get here. He abandons the skillet on the stove to hunt her, clasping her knees in his hands.

From _boobs in your face_ sour to _like that was really you_ scoffing - a long way. She does know him, even the pathetic version of him, killing Storm and seeking something new.

He plants a kiss on her, smacking, and she uses a foot to push him away. "Finish up. I'm starving."

"Yes, ma'am."

It's only when he turns back to the stove that he realizes what he's been putting together. It's the same meal he promised to make for her the day they were shot. It's the same ingredients, the same impulse to take care of her in the small ways he can, and he never noticed until this moment.

It doesn't even cause a blip on his radar.

Maybe if he falls asleep tonight, his dreams will be kinder.

 **x**


	10. Epilogue

**Juice Cups & Coffee Mugs**

* * *

 **A/N:** The point of this three-story series was to give us all the chance to see what the finale wouldn't show us: how we get from dying on the kitchen floor to juice cups and coffee mugs during a Sunday brunch. I hope I've taken us there, up to that great culmination, the first chapter of their great story.

For myself, I chose to give us all the chance for an open ending. As you'll see, their story can go any way you want it to from here. If you're one of those who believes the show writers were always right in every decision they made, that continuity was never at risk, that characters were always executed flawlessly, then you can believe the finale's ending was exactly what their life looks like in seven years' time. And not a dream, not heaven as they died, not - as I have it in this story - Castle's might-have-been life flashing before his eyes as he lay dying, and the motivation to open his eyes and find a way to save them both once again.

However, if you're like me, you want to create your own world from the foundation the creators have laid for us. You want to decorate it how it most appeals to you. You want to hang wooden blinds not curtains; you want to smell the lemon polish as you dust every inch of it yourself. You want to sit back and admire your handiwork and know it is your own corner of the fandom, your own perfect head canon, and it's not bothering anyone.

This chapter is for both kinds, with all the respect and honor and love due after five years of feedback, reviews, encouragement, criticism, strength, friendships, disbelief, belief.

* * *

 **X. Epilogue**

 **x**

It's only fitting that the urgent call of her body comes in the dead of night. Both of them, for once, are deeply asleep. She wakes in an instant, surprised by the inward tug of an instinct both primal and learned - how to listen, how to read the signs, how to know her own body.

She untangles from the pillow and slides her legs out of bed, waits for a moment to be sure her feet are awake enough to handle her weight, and then she stands. Just stands. It takes all of her focus, this sensation, this _event_ , and she doesn't have room or energy for other.

She presses her palms to the unborn, the slow shift inside.

And then it fades, falling off into a low-grade tension that hums just under her skin.

Chaplin is sitting before the window, watching her, his head cocked. When he sees her looking at him, his tail swishes on the floor. As if he knows.

She wriggles her fingers in his direction and he comes, nudges his head under her hand. She pets him, and finds it soothes her as well, that the repetitive motion and his rough fur and his wet nose calm her, bring her focus outward once again, allowing her to see the world as it is, and what needs to be done.

It's quiet and still.

Kate turns and walks carefully around the bed to his side, her eyes now seeing him, now processing, studying the abandon on his face and the return of ease. Just in time for their life to upend once more, messy and wonderful.

She sinks down to the mattress near his hip, and she lays her hand over his on his ribs. She tangles her fingers with his reflexively and squeezes.

"Rick."

Nothing. Not a twitch.

She regrets having to wake him from what seems such restful sleep, but she tugs on his arm and calls his name again.

His lashes flutter like a woman's, his lips purse and then fall apart. It makes her heart flip funny and she finds herself leaning awkwardly into him, kissing his mouth where her voice calling his name made an impression in him.

"Kate," he mumbles into her kiss. "Ah, Kate. What're you-"

"Hey," she says, in love with him, in love with him, filled with it.

Oh, literally. _Filled_ with his love.

Her laugh makes him bolt upright, as if she's delivered some terrible news. His eyes are wild and his hands fumbling all over her. Chaplin barks and Castle startles like a colt, skittish, confused, but she takes her husband by the hands and presses them against her belly.

"Oh, _God_ ," he groans. Shakes his head. "Okay. Yes. Now. Hospital." He swings his legs out of bed and she moves to rise with him, but he lays a heavy hand on her shoulder. He's suddenly entirely awake, competent, collected. "Sit there. Conserve your energy. I'll get the bag, call the service."

"Mm."

He kisses her forehead and then her mouth, deliberation and demand. She nods and he moves for the closet, shedding his pajama pants as he goes. "How much time, you think?" She watches him pull on jeans.

"I don't know," she says, because calculation has entirely left her. There is only the hard band of muscle contracting around her abdomen and knotting her back, and Chaplin nosing in against her knees, between her knees, nipping her fingers and barking again. Excited.

Yes, there is definitely that.

"How far apart, Kate?" he calls. The dog helps drag her out of herself, and she lifts her head to look at Castle. He surveys her face, shakes his head. "Never mind. Here. Leggings. You can wear that t-shirt or this one, if you want to change."

She watches him kneel down before her, bewildered by it. But he dresses her as competently as he must have dressed a three year old daughter, lifting her hips, letting her sway into him, not teasing her for it. "Stand." She does, shucking off her pajama top, a flimsy thing that ought to never see the light of day, and she reaches for the purple cotton t-shirt he hands her.

It's comfortable and soft and he's being really lovely and yet somehow also quite in control. Firm.

"You're hot when you go all dominant on me," she murmurs.

He laughs, briefly circles her wrists with his fingers, and she grins, finding herself with him again, here. Outward.

And yet the unborn keeps dragging her back inside herself, listening. Waiting.

Enduring.

"Kate." Her eyes startled to his. He smiles. "Good job. Car will be here in fifteen. They've been on standby for a week," he says, kissing her again. His excitement is there too, she realizes, just under his skin, twitching his fingers. "I think it will take us fifteen to get downstairs. Are you ready?"

"Do you have the bag?"

"Right here." He pats the leather strap and she realizes it's slung from his shoulder, his phone in one hand, his jeans on. Shoes.

"Where are my sh-"

"Those ballet flats," he answers, a nudge at her ankle. "Right here. No, Chaplin, not for you."

She glances down but she can't _see_ down, just the tail of their dog wagging like crazy, and she feels with her toes as she has been doing for at least a month now. She slips into the ballet shoes, her ankles popping as her loose joints try to stabilize, and she realizes she's afraid.

Kate blows out a fast breath, grips Castle's arm. "Fifteen minutes to get downstairs?"

"You'll see," he smiles. He's so _together_. But he's done this before. She's hated it from time to time, strived to be original just to show him he doesn't know everything about pregnancy, but thank you God for this. For him. Calm. In control.

"Call Kev about the dog," she tells him.

"I texted him after I called the car service," he says easily, his forearm under her elbow like she can't walk on her own.

She can walk. She's just fine. It's only contractions.

"Oh, God, Castle, we're having a baby."

He chuckles, his cheek brushing intimately across her jaw, and her stomach flutters and tightens all over again. Rick opens the hall closet and pulls out her coat - she would have forgotten her coat - and slides it on her arms for her as if she can't even dress herself.

Maybe she can't.

The dog barks. She glances back and sees Chaplin circling the couch in excited bursts of energy. "Castle. He-"

"He's fine. He's fine. Let's worry about you right now."

"Don't have to worry about me," she says, scowling at him. He's tugging her out the door. She glances back again. "Chaplin, stay. Be a good boy. Don't you dare eat the blinds again."

"He's fine, Kate, honey. He's fine."

"Don't patronize me," she snaps, whipping her head back to him.

Castle nods. "I realize. But it works. Into the elevator with you. The car service will be here in nine minutes."

"You said fifteen!"

He presses his lips together, but the laugh bubbles out of him. She feels like that too, she realizes, only hers is hysteria. She is that close to losing it. She's going to have a _baby_. She did this. She _did_ this to herself; she's almost forty and she let him get her pregnant and now there is no going back _oh God._

"Elevator, eight minutes."

"I'm not a baby person."

"You'll be fine with ours. And I'm here. Partners, Kate. Don't shuffle your feet."

She picks up her feet even though that's almost impossible, hustling now because the band around her abdomen is tightening again, torquing, and she realizes it might actually stop her in her tracks.

She might have to lean against the wall and wait for it to pass.

"Here we are," Castle calls to her, goading, encouraging. She does better when he's sarcastic her, when her ire is up, when she's a little pissed off, and he must know that.

Of course he knows that. He _said_ it worked. He knows her. Thank God, he knows her; he knows what to do; she's not alone.

Rick tugs her after him onto the elevator and she squeezes his hand, crowds her traitorous body into his, gripping him. "Thank you, thank you, thank-"

"Hey," he says roughly, a burr in his voice that rakes inside her. "Hey, you got this, Kate."

She nods insistently against his neck, and he digs a thumb into her spine until the elevator dings and the door slides open.

Castle wraps an arm around her waist, as best as he can, and she realizes her legs have cramped as if trying to draw her knees into her chest. She sags and finds her feet again, but he's resolute, firm.

Commanding.

"Yeah, really hot, Castle. I swear."

He grins, lets her see that flash of his teeth and a little of the feral in his blue, and he pushes open the lobby door, the two of them - three of them - caught in the vestibule together. Crowed. Close. Waiting for the car service.

"I have five names on my list," she says suddenly. He doesn't even turn his head. She shifts, wincing. "I want you to pick. I want us to do it together, name the unborn together."

He smiles. "I can do that."

He makes her stay right at his side as he peers out into the city that never sleeps. A lone woman walking past in high heels is talking on her cell phone. A taxi cruises.

And then Kate has a contraction.

She curses and grits her teeth, turns her head into his shoulder. Her fists grip his coat as if he alone can keep her upright, and the spasms go all the way down her legs and all the way up her back. It makes her breath tight. It makes her neck stiff.

"Breathe. In and out."

She hisses out a breath and sucks another back in, remembering finally how to breathe at all. She opted for natural childbirth. This shouldn't scare her.

He rubs low at her back, soothing. "That's it. You got this."

"Wasn't - wasn't a contraction before," she admits. "Because - this - shit - this definitely is."

"Mm, probably was before too," he tells her softly. And then a grunt. "Ah, here we are. Perfect timing. Come on. Just a matter of eight steps to the car."

Of course she can make it to the car. Of course she doesn't want an epidural, a needle in her spine; of course she's doing this naturally, as her own mother did.

She is making it to the car.

Castle pushes open the security door and holds it for her, also holding her, and despite the bag on his shoulder, his phone in one hand, their bulky coats, and her near-crippling contractions, she makes it to the car.

Lowering herself is a production, but she doesn't even care. Let the whole world gawk. She just wants to sit and draw her knees up into her chest as far as possible in this condition, and Castle merely shoves her over so he can get in after her.

His hand loops around her knee and helps hold her in place, and then he leans forward and talks to the driver.

It's a pre-arranged thing, everyone knows their part, and her gratitude feels as enormous as the unborn pressing against her bladder and wedging his head low in her pelvis.

Low, very low, her body might split wide in this car and the unborn come tumbling right out _low_.

Born.

"Oh, God, Castle, the car has _got_ to go faster than this," she growls.

Castle squeezes her knee with his arm, finds her hand where she clutches her abdomen. "We're just fine. We're going to make it in plenty of time. You breathe, push when they tell you, and leave the rest to me." He kisses the side of her face, which feels patronizing, but it fuels the anger that is her strength.

And then the anger turns belly up, just like the dog when he's begging for love.

"I'm so glad you're here," she gasps, tearing apart with it. He might not have been. He was taken in a later ambulance, she was seven or eight minutes ahead of him out of death. And before that he was missing for months one summer; she was driving up and down the coast desperate to find him. And then she was stupid about the case and backed into a corner and left him for his own safety. The litany is long; their break-ups and mistakes and near-deaths longer. He might not have been here for this. "I'm so glad it's you."

He must see the desperation on her face or feel it in her voice or the tremble of her body as the contraction grips like a fist, because he leans in and takes her mouth for a kiss equal and strong and reassuring, all in one.

"It was only ever going to be me. I was never going to be anywhere else," he says.

She takes in a deep breath, keeps her eyes on his. "I love you."

"I love you." He smiles, his eyes splintering with love. "Let's meet our baby."

 **x**


End file.
